Todd Howard: Skyrim, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout, and Starfield | Lex Fridman Podcast #342

- Blink once, if when Elder Scrolls VI is coming out, but are not going to tell me. The following is a conversation with Todd Howard, one. of the greatest video game designers of all time. He has led the development of the Fallout series. and the Elder Scrolls series, including Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and the future. Elder Scrolls VI, and a totally new world. in an upcoming game called Starfield.

Many of these have won game of the year awards. and have been some. of the most celebrated and impactful games ever made. To me, Skyrim is quite possibly the greatest game, ever. This is Alex Friedman podcast. To support it please check out our sponsors. in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Todd Howard. Is it possible that we are currently living inside. a video game that the future you designed,

can you give hints as to how one would escape. if this was a video game? How can a video game character escape to outside. the video game? Are these things you don't consider. when you design the game? - Actually, we do, 'cause in the kind of games that we make, we want it to be as open as possible. So when you start a game, you're always testing it. What can I do? What would the game allow me to do? And you check everything. You try to pick up the mugs, you try every door,

you collide with everything. Like, hey, what are the rules of this world? We try to do games where we say yes as much as possible, that leads to some level of chaos. But if you were stuck in a video game, you would try everything. And usually you're gonna find a door or a space. where the designers didn't anticipate you piling all. those crates up and getting over a wall. that they didn't expect. - Right, so it's not a designed doorway out,

it's accidental, unintended doorway out. And it's a happy bug. - You could like "Truman Show,". just get in the ocean and go until it's... - [Lex] Just keep going and keep going... - Right, right, right. - But the more realistic the game becomes, the harder it is to find that door. The bigger the world, the bigger the open world... - And then as we do it, we learn they're gonna find a way. So just don't try to pen 'em in. Usually we leave like this developer test cell area.

in the game that we don't anticipate anyone will find. And they ultimately find it, it usually has crates of all the weapons in the game. and things like that. - The little hints you drop now will just drive people mad, which is something I enjoy deeply. So Skyrim NPCs have at times hilarious dialogue. What does it take to build a good NPC dialogue?

- The main thing is to make them reactive. A lot of times when you write characters for movies. or things like that, you wanna make that character interesting. for themselves, right? What's their story? And there's some characters like. that the player definitely cares about, but the best characters are the ones that react to you. So you'll find a lot of people love our guards. and the guards are written almost purely to be reactive.

Hey, nice tie, like your jacket, do this, cool watch, hey, what'd you do? And so that, hey, you're the man as you walk by, that makes them interesting or the way they react. to something that you do. Lydia in Skyrim, who everybody loves, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens.". That's a generic line that all of the housecarls have. and it just kind of lands when she says it. - Why does it land? What do you...

And did you anticipate it would land? - It's a slight snarkiness in that particular read. of it and you're asking her to do something. and she's reacting to you. - What about the trade off. between maybe. the randomness and the scripted nature of the dialogue? Like is there any room for randomness of the dialogue tree? - Oh, absolutely. We tend to write 'em in stacks with, it's a very small,

think of it as a small state machine that just says, okay, this is what's happening, here's a random list of things I could say to that... And then some of that plays out in ways. you don't anticipate. But we look at the things, what are the players doing that we could have. the characters respond to that they don't expect, jumping on tables or stealing stuff or sneaking.

in in the middle of the night or those kind of things. The more that we can do, the more reactive and interesting the characters appear. - And these state machines, how big are these things? Are these individual to the individual characters? That's just fascinating how you design state machines. Is it just a giant- - I would think. of the AI as one big one. Yeah. - Oh. - For sort of everybody.

- So there's an AI. - [Todd] There's a manager for all the people and one. of the things... - A people manager? - Right. Right. - Nice. - One of the things that makes what we do. particularly unique is... And this is a trade off for what people are seeing, 'cause a lot of it's not on the screen, but we're using cycles to run this, which is we're thinking about everybody in the whole. world all the time. The ones that are further away, at a much less tick rate, they go into low,

but we know if they wanna walk across the world. and we're running every quest at the same time. Whereas in other open world games, you start an activity, the rest of the world's gonna shut down. so that they can really make that as impactful. We're, I really prefer that the rest of it's going on. It's more of a simulation that we're building. So when those things collide, that's where it gets the most interesting.

And so we are running all of those people. and understanding where they wanna go and their cycles. and what they wanna do, and the ones that are closer to you, we just update a lot more. It's one way to think about it. - I mean, that's really fascinating. That's something that people had, they were wondering about to what degree it's possible. to run the world without you. So there is a feeling to role playing games. that you're the central, you're the center of the world, and the whole world rotates around you.

As it does in normal life. Like when we walk around, right? There's a, when you forget yourself, you start to take yourself very seriously. Like you are the center of the world. You forget that there's 8 billion people. on Earth and you forget that they have lives. That's actually a sobering realization that they all. have really interesting life stories and they have. their worries, they suffer in different complicated ways... And yet when you play a role playing game, there's a, I mean, both computationally,

from a storytelling perspective, you wonder if the world goes on without you. Like if you come back, if you take a break and you come back, is there still a bustling town that now has. a history since you have last visited? So to what degree can you create a world that goes. on without you or goes on at the same time as you do. your thing, whatever the heck you're doing. - We don't prioritize the stuff you can't see. So it's more like an amusement park. If you study like the design or our level designers.

did this, how do they build Disney World in these places? So it still exists for you, the player. So it is fairly, when you're gonna come in, this is what you're gonna see, the shops are in the front, you're gonna do this. It's just for us to make it far more believable. and get some more emergent behavior that, not just make the sort of the verisimilitude. of what you're in for that moment, but you buy it all,

always say like we gotta do. the little things so that you buy the reality. of the virtual world you're in, so if we wanna do something crazy, when a dragon lands, or a death claw comes out of the wasteland. or those kind of things that you, it has the impact to you as the viewer that it would. to the people in the world. - Okay. But still you are simulating stuff that's close to you. It is a bit of a simulation going on. - Oh, absolutely. Yes. - And so that creates some interesting dynamics then.

- And the stuff that we're looking at in the future, our plan is to push that even more, to think about how these things exist in the world first... Now, we do some of this, but even more so in the future to say, how do these things exist? Take like a faction in the world, what is their role in the world as opposed. to just their role is for the player to join it, go through a bunch of quests and become the head. of the faction.

Think a little bit deeper about the simulation. and what would the Mages Guild be doing in a fantasy. world or the Fighters Guild be doing in a fantasy. world versus just sign up, do quests, get gold. - And so that when you show up. to that Mages Guild, it's a bustling guild full. of stuff going on. - It's not just that it's bustling, that they feel rooted in it. They don't feel like a storefront. for come here, do quests, get experience.

- Is that one of the essential components. of randomly generated worlds? So when I think back to Daggerfall, has a gigantic world, when I first played it, I thought like, I mean, you're just struck by the immensity of it. The immensity of the possibility, when you're young and you look into your future, it's wide open and you can do anything. And that's what Daggerfall felt like. The openness was gigantic.

- And Daggerfall is interesting coming off. Arena, where Arena does the same thing, but Daggerfall in many ways is bigger despite focusing. on an area because of how the density of, okay, this is how much physical game space we'll do. for these villages and towns. And it does feel endless even though you're looking. at a map that has constraints. And Daggerfall actually was a touchstone for us going.

into Starfield, for how we do the planets, because there is, there's a different kind. of gameplay experience when you just wander outside. a city in Daggerfall, then follow a quest line. and go through, go to this place. and it's completely handcrafted and everything. around every corner we've kind of placed like Skyrim, Starfield's a bit more like. Daggerfall, and if you wander outside the city,

we're gonna be generating things and you kind of get. used to that game flow, different than we've done before and fun. in a different kind of way. - We'll talk about Starfield. So just for people who don't know, and how dare you for not knowing, but we're, with Daggerfall we're talking. about the Elder Scrolls series that started, sort of talking about the big titles within the series. Started with Arena in '94, Daggerfall fall in '96... I didn't look up the years before this. This is depressing.

Or awesome. So all of these games brought hundreds, probably for some of them, thousands of hours of joy for me. So Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. So I don't remember Arena being that open world. - Well it's all the provinces, it follows kind of the same pattern. It just doesn't have all the number of villages. and places that Daggerfall has. While Daggerfall focuses on the Iliac Bay area,

Arena does it all, just changes the scale in terms of one block. on the map equals this much space. - There is something that, I mean, I'm speaking to anecdotal experience, but I just remember it feeling wide open, Daggerfall. - [Todd] It definitely was. Yes. - In the way Arena didn't. I don't remember... Maybe because Arena, it was so cool to have the, just the role playing game aspect.

You're focused on the items and the character development. You... - Daggerfall has a lot more depth, particularly in the character system. That's what it introduces all of the skills. and those kind of things. Arena... It's actually, it's a game I love, and it's very, very elegant, if you look at the first one. where it's just an XP based system, do this, get XP, level up, very classic role playing game. Daggerfall digs deep into who's your character, how you gonna develop it, what are your skills?

There's advantages, there's disadvantages. And the environment going full 3D. from Arena, which is actually like a two-and-a-half-D. Doom style engine, that I agree. with you that Daggerfall feels like. there's more possibilities when you're playing it. - Were you able to like look up the sky in Daggerfall? - Yep. - My memories... - It's full 3D, yeah. - Yeah, it's, so that's what full 3D means. And then you can go outside the city? - You can walk outside the city. You can do that in Arena too,

but it looks more fakey, right? It's all gonna be a flat plane. Here comes things, and then a dungeon entrance. is a 8 bit, here comes a little flap coming at the camera. - So before we go to the end, in the middle, so from Starfield to Fallout and the Elder Scrolls series, let's go to the very beginning. What's the origin story? You know what, let's even go before then. When's the first time you remember the thing. that made you fall in love with video games?

- Well, I think it's partly my age, coming up with the arcades and playing. Space Invaders at the pizza place, and then Pac-Man really... What's interesting about video games and what Pac-Man did. for video games where it popularized them in a way. that was just insane at the time. Had a song, had a cartoon, had all of the things... Nintendo comes along. So it was always part of I think if you were a kid. growing up, then it was such a newness to playing.

things like that. And I remember being in fifth grade when the TRS-80. was brought into the classroom and there was. a Star Trek game, and I was enamored with it. And they were gonna start teaching. some rudimentary programming. Like, okay, would you like to know how this is made? And I was hooked. I was like, I need to figure out how to make this stuff. And so I was a self-taught programmer and my whole. goal was to write my own video games.

And by sixth, seventh grade I had written my own. much better Star Trek clone. - Yeah, of course. - Apple II. And I really enjoyed programming in the Apple II then... And that I think was the right level of like complexity. at that age where you could kind of, you were always learning, but you could still understand a lot of the problem. set for like, this is what I wanna get on the screen,

and I was also into art. So I did a lot of art and I did a lot of programming. and I was always making games. That was my hobby from the time I was 10 or 12. - What was to you, involved in making games? Like how did you think of it? Was it from a graphics perspective? Like what shows up on screen? Was it how it makes you feel? Was it about the story? Was it the text based stuff and the dialogue. and the prompting? like what does it mean to create a video game.

at that young age to you? - Well, it was a way of experiencing things. that I couldn't myself. so if you're playing Dungeons & Dragons at the time too, where you really feel, even pen and paper, these are like they feel somewhat, in quotes, real, to you as you're playing them. You're very invested in your character. and what you're doing. And then I loved the games,

the Wizardry and Ultima that were able to bring. that to a computer so I could do it on my own time. It was very, very real to me. I'd sit in my bedroom and then go to bed and think. about it and then, oh no, I have to go to school. I wanna come home and figure out how to do this problem. in the game. And so whatever I was creating was something. that I was excited about at the time. I made Raiders of the Lost Ark Game. - Like with graphics and everything? - Yeah, it was, so it was usually... Made a Miami Vice game, made a Groo the Wanderer game,

made a Traveller game. I made, and, but every time I was doing it I wanted. to figure out a new method on the Apple II of pulling. it off graphically. Whether that was editing character sets to get graphics. in different formats or how can I enable the secret. double high res mode it had, or just things like that where it became kind. of this limitless, what can I make this do? And I had some friends who were doing the same thing. And then you get into, who can impress each other?

And I was kind of middle of the pack, I would say, and that, but again, this was the time where they're bringing computers. into the school and the Apples come into the school. and the teachers are learning it because they have. to teach the students. But then I was, I would say I was part of a group of students. that were like way past that. And it was very much of a self-taught, how do you make this thing dance? - I'd like to ask a strange question.

So at that time, a lot of people consider you one of, if not the greatest game designer, creator of all time. You were middle of the pack then, did you have a sense that this would be your life. and you would also be creating the greatest games ever? - Not in the slightest, no. I don't think anybody, but I was very much like that was my dream at that age.

But you don't think that that's a job, you know? And as I got older, I was really going through college and I, even the computer classes then weren't where I wanted. them to be. So I was still kind of doing my own stuff. And I ended up getting a business degree. and then interviewing for some jobs, like finance jobs, well I guess I should do this to make money and I can.

keep doing this on the side. And I remember I actually got to like the final level. of like this corporate finance job at Circuit City. - [Lex] Nice. - And they turned me down and I was like, fuck them, I'm just gonna go make video games. So thank you, Circuit City. - Yeah, I remember Circuit City. I think they went bankrupt actually. - Well they were based in Richmond. I was going to school close to there. And so... - So what, what's the origin story of you joining. Bethesda Softworks at the time?

- So I had gotten Wayne Gretzky Hockey 3. for Christmas from my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. I was in college. And I noticed that it was. in Rockville, Maryland, and oh, that's on my way home over Christmas break back. to William and Mary where I went to college, and I was at this point committed,

like this is what I wanna do, so I'm just gonna drive by and knock on the door, which is what I did. So I drove by and knocked on the doors, Martin Luther King Day, '93. And someone came out and met me and said, well, maybe, what... And I, well I'm in college, I'm talking about when I'm outta school. I'm like, well, okay, well, contact us then. And I would say I was, I would contact them every once in a while. I did work for a small software company right outta.

school down in that area of Williamsburg and still. would contact, Bethesda, Arena had just come out. So then we're in '94, Arena had just come. out and I loved it. So I was the sports games, I like the hockey stuff. They were doing a basketball, they did a basketball game. - Yeah, I'm just looking at, they did a lot of, they did like six sports games, six, Bethesda released 10 games, six of them sports games. and NCAA Basketball, Hockey League Simulator.

- Hockey League Simulator. Yep. So there was really like Sports, Gridiron!, which is like the first kind of physics based. football game at the time. And there's a famous story with Electronic Arts trying. to do Madden and then hiring Bethesda, before my time, to make Madden 'cause they were struggling. And when I started at Bethesda, I remember the owner. had John Madden's Oakland Raiders playbook. in his office. Like, ooh, can I see that? And I love sports, right?

So I still play Madden to this day. I love it. - So there's an alternate reality where... - I made sports games? - Yeah. - Absolutely. I wanted to make like the ultimate college football game. Well it's always, like it's like music. You probably listen to lots type of music. Like you don't play every type... - But I think of open worlds as fundamentally different... - [Todd] Well, sure. - No, like source of happiness, entertainment, storytelling, world, gaming than Madden. I mean it just, 'cause I love both,

I love both worlds, but... - They're two totally different experiences. Just like when you might watch a movie, you might be in the mood for "Lord of the Rings" one day. and then you want some other, I don't know, competitive show or game show. or something like that. Or watch football on TV right? You watch football on TV, but then I wanna watch get really into "Game of Thrones.". So I think all those things. have validity and actually one of the first things. I worked on when I started at Bethesda was. NCAA Basketball: Road to the Final Four 2.

So that was kind of an external project which came. in like, hey, you know sports, get this game done and then went on to, but they were doing everything I loved. It was like, this is where I have to work. They're doing like the Terminator science fiction stuff. I love that. They're doing these open world role playing games. Like I love that. And they're doing sports. Like this... I have to work here. So started there and... - You loved. - I loved it. Yeah. So when I came in, it had just come out and they were doing.

the CD-ROM version. So CD-ROMs aren't even out yet. - Oh, it used to be floppy discs. That's probably one of what was a... - We would burn 'em in the basement. We had the disc replicators. - Right. So Arena was not released on floppy? - It was, yeah. It's, I believe it's six floppy discs. - Six floppy discs. - Maybe it was eight. - [Lex] Yeah. - But in those days, the number of floppy discs was very, very important to what, the money you were making.

so if you wanted to do a big, huge game, like, well, that's just too many discs. So the CD-ROM became this jumping off point. for the whole industry where, oh, it's unlimited data. - By the way, I played Arena... So that was of course attained (laughs). legally, as one does.

- [Todd] Alternate means? - By alternate means on floppy discs. And that was such an incredible, as you probably have seen, interacted with a large number of people, it's a whole world. It's a world that you escaped to in the way, like your favorite book like Lord of the Rings, you, it was just some, it was unlike anything else. It was incredible. It's probably, I mean, of course as people say is the first game you play.

is the most, is the one that really sentimentally. means the most to you. That I think the first role playing game I played. and it was just, changed everything. - Was Arena? - Was Arena. Yeah. I think Daggerfall is what I really kinda really played. Especially because, like you said, the character development was really rich, but just like that you can be, feel like you travel to this whole other world, that's less about entertainment, like a shooting game and more about a world,

it felt like it's a world, like you're literally there, you can travel there, you can live there, you actually feel like that person, versus like a Pac-Man, like an arcade fun, entertaining, adventure game. So... So you joined, you made it, what did you work on first there? - I worked, well everyone did a bunch of stuff.

So I worked on the basketball game really just to get. it out the door, and Terminator: Future Shock. So we were doing. Future Shock and Daggerfall at the same time. They were developing a new engine. So it was one of the first 3D engines, the XnGine. There were a bunch of guys from Denmark actually. There's like a big Danish demo scene. in those days in the PC. And so a bunch of the top programmers there, well, look, this is not big, this is not a big company.

Maybe there's 20 people in development. And we were doing both Daggerfall and the new Terminator. And so Daggerfall was a bit more, again, behind the Terminator game. So I was one of the main people on the Terminator team, and I don't know, things kind of worked out. I very quickly, I don't know why, like I quickly became the producer and I was making. levels and doing all these things, and it was awesome. And like looking back now I can understand it better,

but at the time I didn't appreciate it, which is no one quite owned the Terminator license. It was in like this limbo, legally. So there was no one to tell us what to, like, no, you can't do that. So we would pick apart the movies, and oh, how does he mention the gun he wants, and the wattage. of the laser and all these things. And so Future Shock is a game that I still love today. It does a lot of things that if you go back and look at it, we're frankly still doing, like it's a large open world post-apocalyptic.

landscape height map with instance objects all over it. And that is still a lot of how we build our worlds. - What's an instance object? - It's, some games every wall or building is kind. of unique in its data. Whereas we would just build these little husks. of buildings and then place them all over the place.

So the memory and the way you render. it is much more optimal. - So that allows you to build a bigger world, more... - Allows you to build a bigger world much faster and not. every single version of that building. is in its own unique architecture that is gonna take. up memory and processing speed, et cetera, et cetera. - So you're there very much feeling. the computational constraints of the system. when you're creating these open worlds. - And you know what, that's the thing then, you see some of it now. But in those times, I do feel like every year, the technology moved.

And maybe it's because same thing where like. that my age at that time where every year somebody. was coming up with some new method or some new game system, and it was every year that innovation, innovation, innovation. And then 3D acceleration comes along and then. these things come along and then HD comes along. And it is true that as time goes on, there is visually a diminishing return in terms.

of what you're able to do on the screen. And it, there's a ton of work that goes. into it now because just rendering this cup. to the perfect shine of material and roughness. and how does the global illumination off this wall gets... It's a ton of work. But you can pretty much do what you want now, if you wanna put the time in. Whereas then, okay, you can't do everything you want. So pick your battles really carefully,

and technically you couldn't do what you want, if that makes sense. - How much trade off is there now. in how much effort you put into. the realism of the graphics versus the story? And actually not even how much effort you put in, but is there a trade off in the experience, the feel of the game in terms of realism and story? - Usually we will start with let the player have.

as much agency and do as many things. as they can as possible. And we will sacrifice some graphic fidelity for that, some speed for that. We could make a game that... Our, traditionally our games we are okay with 30 frames. a second, as long as it looks really good. and the simulation's running and all of those things. So we'll sacrifice some of that fidelity. for the player experience in the kind of things that I do. But from like a manpower standpoint,

the graphics programmers work on graphics, the artists work on art and we have an awesome team. of artists and designers and writers and programmers. It's usually where we find, as time goes on, the amount of art time that it takes to create. a cup compared to what it used to be, that has increased. So we do use, like most people use art outsourcing as well, so that we're not, we still relatively, compared to our industry and what we're doing,

have smaller teams. - What about the experience of the beauty of the graphics? So like one of the most amazing things. about Skyrim, and maybe you could say that about some. of the other games, but for me Skyrim is the outdoor, when you step outside, it's the outdoor scenery. So what does it take to create the feeling especially. of that being outdoors, of nature and just like lost in the beauty...

Whatever it is when you go hiking and you feel the awe. of it, how do you create that awe? Is that graphics? What is that? - It's a lot of graphics, it's a lot of mood. We just like talk about it in terms of tone. And those are, again, going back to my previous comment, the graphics are very, very important to us because, and we always push them, because when you're doing the kind of things we do. where you step into a virtual world, it doesn't have to have that moment of, wow, this is,

this feels real, I've never experienced this, and it's okay... I think it's okay to let, just like the time settle, meaning you step out, just how does the wind sound? How are the trees moving? How are the clouds moving? I enjoy strolling and watching the sunset. How does it land over the water?

Like it doesn't have to be like, hey, let's go, let's finish a quest, let's go kill things. Let's figure out the next step. Let's level up. Like, I like the quiet moments a lot and I think. when you play our games, you can tell we spend a lot of time on them. Then you watch like the weather roll in. I think that's just part of being, being that character, being that person in that space. - Yeah, the, I saw that there's a mod that removes all enemies. I've been meaning to do that,

to just do like a live stream where for hours walk. around Skyrim just and then answer questions and so on. That just feels, that's a completely stress-free environment. It's just, you are, just like you said, in this moment in time and it's so incredible. It feels as incredible as going hiking or. something like that, but in another, in a totally different place, like Iceland or something like that. This whole other surreal ethereal place.

It's, yeah, it's incredible how you kind of create that. So graphics is a part of that, but also letting it, the temporal aspect of that, like the wind, the rustling sound and look and all of that... - The soundscape is really, really important. And the sky... We spend a lot of time on the sky 'cause it's taking. up much more of the screen than a lot of people. give credit for. - What about the rendering, the openness of it?

Like how do you, is that... - There's a lot of level of detail, streaming work. and nowadays it's getting more common. Like frankly, the systems are built better for it. Hard drive speed is really prioritized. Like they're so blazing fast. You take Skyrim and Oblivion. and the Fallouts of that 360 era, it's a, and it was a lot of time spent on how do. we get all this data streaming in as you move.

and then levels of detail so you can see all the way, but not crush the processor. - You know what, let's even step back as you mentioned tone, you mentioned tone a lot. What do you mean by tone? - It's all of it together. If you look at, I think you can flip through, let's just take fantasy, you can sort of look at a couple images or things. and know how does "Lord of the Rings" different. from "Game of Thrones" that is different.

than one like Excalibur. or your Syfy channel. series of the month kind of thing. And so finding that, what's gonna make it kinda unique and usually I lean. on something that is grounded. in reality for what it is,

and then have lesser kind of fantastical things, at least at the start. And then they kind of build. So even when we do Starfield, I mean. it's a science fiction game, there are laser guns and spaceships that fly around. and shoot each other and blah blah blah. But it's grounded in, you can look at it and say, okay, this is kind of an extension of things as we view. them today in space.

And we sort of take the same approach. with Fallout, where admittedly things can get, admittedly, things can get even a little bit crazier the longer. you're developing Fallout content. - So just to linger on this, so tone starts at, or defining the tone starts at creating. a realistic experience? Like you feel like I could walk. into this and this feels like life. - What's their technology level, like even for a fantasy world, like is magic,

how prevalent is it? Or are they making weapons and things and armor... Is it for utility? Is it for decoration? How do they live their lives? Does this feel like a place that you believe, that has some grounding in our reality, whether that's historical or near future or... That it's grounded in some semblance of the reality. that you and I understand so that it can feel, it's also making it feel a little bit welcoming.

Like, okay, I understand this. - Is that art or science? So like what, how do you know when it feels welcoming. and everything fits in this ground? - I don't know. I mean it's, I guess it's personal taste. Some people like things that are weirder that have. more fantastical from the get-go. Even a game like Morrowind, where we get into some. more fantastical things, it intentionally starts. a little more grounded. There's a very classic medieval-looking town.

that you come into, but you look just beyond it, there're mushroom trees and giant insects. and things like that. - So in Skyrim, when you put a dragon in it, what are your thoughts about dragons and tone? How does that fit into tone? - [Todd] That's a great question. The... - It's a ridiculous question, but yeah, I just love dragons, I wanna bring it up. - No, no, no. These are the things that we debate with. - Do we include a dragon?

Why didn't you include a dragon in Daggerfall? That's what I wanna know. - I think there's dragon wings. They were hard to do. Dragons are hard to do. So when you start Skyrim, say, hey, look, dragons are gonna be a theme. Start visually. You can make the argument that dragons existed. Okay, what would they look like? How close to dinosaurs would they be, or what would they, and ours are less, I believe they're less fantastical looking, in general, they look like beasts that could exist in that world. And then how we introduce them,

it's kind of a little bit of a slow roll. in Skyrim and that the people in the world are reacting. to the dragons appearing... And that's somewhat mirrors... You want something that mirrors the player experience, as well that says back to you, like, hey, no, these are, this is, have you heard this? Someone saw a dragon. - Well that's what Daggerfall, isn't there mentions of dragons or something? 'Cause I remember being sure that there's dragons.

in Daggerfall as I'm playing it and I'm searching. - I'm pretty sure, well... - [Lex] Is there a dragon in Daggerfall? - There's dragon wings in Daggerfall. To my memory, look, I guess someone will probably correct me, like actually there is a dragon here, but I'm pretty sure they're sort of, they're not... And then game I did, Redguard, which, we bring back a dragon, it takes place beforehand, so we have a dragon there in that game. And that was unique to that at the time. - Yeah, just a brief tangent on that. I thought Redguard was a really, really good game.

I played it as... I, again, you don't just, you forget stuff. But I remember getting, I guess it was the first in the Elder Scrolls series. to put it in into that world. But it was like an adventure game. You remind me of another game I really love like. Prince of Persia. - That was one of the inspirations, Prince of Persia's one of my favorite games. - Like, okay, I apologize if I'm forgetting, but you can like jump in buildings and stuff...

Like there's a jumping, there's a dynamic, like airy nature, like it's a like park type situation. Yeah, it was an incredible game. Why do you think, let me, that's sort of a dark question. Why do you think that game was a flop? One of the few-. - Not a dark question. Yeah, it was. Well, a lot of reasons. Game that I love and really got us going. on a handcrafted world. So we're coming off a Daggerfall, Morrowind is sort. of in design, and then part of our development teams.

broke up to do different things. The games, Battlespire and Redguard was my game, and I wanted to do something a little more Ultima. feeling, handcrafted world. I really like things that blend up genres. So I know it's in the adventure game category, but it really does a lot of things. It's a love letter to Prince of Persia. There's a little Raiders of the Lost Ark in it. There's a lot of Ultima in it. And really see what we could do with the engine.

But it's very much, I think plays, like it would've had a much better home on say. PlayStation or Xbox, it predates Xbox, right? Where it's a much more like constantly... Tomb Raider had come out. So you see those influences of Tomb Raider on that game. And 3D effects cards had just come out. And so, okay, we can do, and it was the last, I think it's one of the last like DOS games. in a Windows world. So I think it missed kind of a technology window.

as well as ultimately not what people wanted. from us, you know? And I felt, I was really kind of, the company let me make that game and it was a big flop, Battlespire hadn't done well. The company was in a really bad shape and I felt. really like personally responsible. Like they let me do this creative thing, it didn't do what we needed it to do and now.

we're in a very, very bad situation. Company almost went out business. And that's when it got reformed. with ZeniMax Media and Robert Altman came. in and we were starting Morrowind, we had just sort of started. And it was sort of that whole experience that made. you sort of realize, someone says to you, okay, you're gonna get another shot. And that's where like, okay, we're gonna make Morrowind and make the biggest,

best RPG we can make. We know what the audience wants from us, we know what we could do. Building a world... So there's like callbacks to how we built. the world in Redguard. Morrowind is a large scale, handcrafted, but if you were to put it pixel per pixel. with Daggerfall, you wouldn't even see Morrowind, like 'cause Daggerfall is so big. But the impact of playing it, I think, is in many ways equal, but different. - Just you personally, psychologically, did you have doubt about yourself. from the performance of Redguard?

Like do I even, do I know what it is to... - [Todd] Of course, of course. - Where do you get the, how do you overcome that? - I don't know. I would say this honestly, I enjoy it so much, like I'm so heads down like that becomes for better. or worse like my life. And it's just something that I wanna play so much. It becomes like, there's a little bit, you get a little obsessed with it. - No, but I mean, you love Redguard, right?

So like doesn't that mean, isn't there a kind of self doubt about, do I know what it takes to create a great game? - Well, no, I think Redguard's a great game. - [Lex] Right? So you were sure even if it wasn't-. - Okay, so you're gonna debate like, do I like that game? It's about finding an, okay, so I love Redguard. And the people who play it, it won a bunch of awards and it, like, critically was a pretty good game. Did not sell. And the reason for that, again, like we probably made this the wrong type of game.

and we missed a technology window. We also thought it was very conservative, we're gonna do this. So my main takeaway was I'm not gonna. be conservative again. I'm gonna swing for the fences. And we've had... There'll be some rough edges in swinging. for the fences and shooting for the moon, but we'd rather do that and land where we land. than be very, very conservative in what we're putting out there. - You you've mentioned, just referencing this game,

on a Reddit AMA that long time ago, during Redguard, the lead programmer made me, made all the buildings hop up and down after you played. for 10 minutes just to mess with me. Just on a curious tangent, what's involved with programming an open world game? So we talked about, we will talk about design and so on, but specifically the programming, 'cause I think this question came from what are. some interesting sticky bugs.

that you've encountered throughout your life. in creating these games? And this is one of them that you mentioned. So what are some of the challenges of programming. these open world games? - I mean, there are different flavors of them, right? Your GTAs will have different issues. than the Ubisoft games versus our games. I can sort of speak to ours, which is you wanna build systems, right? Because they're gonna play the game for a very long.

time as well, which we've learned. And you can't go through and touch everything. by hand, per se. So you have to rely on some systemic level of creation. and a lot of systems that are robust enough. so that when they touch another one, things aren't breaking apart. - So there's like a, what are the major systems? Is there like the physics of the game? The engine of how like stuff...

Yeah, like yeah the physics, the motion and maybe how light is rendered and all. that kind of stuff? - Right. So you have the rendering, right, of like, okay, this is how I'm gonna render the data that I have. So a lot of people confuse engines with rendering. I mean, they're combined, obviously, but there's the data you're gonna give to a renderer, which is the thing, you know, that draws the pixels on the screen. So there's a, most of the engine is how are. you gonna bring in that data and give. it to the renderer to draw it.

So you have that whole system of walking through the world, feeding in the data and drawing it. You then obviously have the physics and the interactivity. What are the things that are there just to be drawn. and what are the things there that are meant. to be interacted with and touched? We put a big premium on the ones that can be. interacted with and touched, whether it's flowers, whether the trees move, whether you can sleep on the sofa, sit in this chair, pick up all this stuff, bake bread,

blah blah blah. You then have, the AI, which loops in the stuff. we talked about earlier in terms of processing everybody, and combat systems, which is a lot of what people end up doing, combat systems on top of that AI. How do they react to those types of things? And then how do they look at the things that can. be interacted with? One of my favorite things is when NPCs will go pick. up weapons in the world. But you don't see in other games.

And the first time you see it in one of ours, it's like very unexpected. You can drop like a crazy weapon, be in a fight and an NPC runs over, picks it up and uses it on you. It's not something you would expect. But I love that stuff. - And that's integrated into a larger system. The ability to pick up a, the NPC picking up, so it's not like a little quirk that's hard coded in, it's part of a bigger system. - They have their own AI for scanning the environment. and that's one of the rules. Hey, is there a weapon that is better than the one I have?

I'm gonna go get it. Now, we do lock off if it's in a chest. and that's treasure we left for the player. But it's in particular, 'cause what you don't want, we actually had this problem started. in Oblivion, I believe, which was set a level, hey, let the enemies go pick up the weapons if they're better. So we make a level and go in and all of the enemies. are armed to the teeth and there's no treasure. for the player because the enemies went and took all. the good weapons. And you say, okay, they don't take those, they take the ones that are dropped by other. NPCs or the player.

- That's such a fascinating world of the designing. the experience for the NPC because in part, that experience is, defines the experience as a player. So how they interact with their environment defines. how the player experiences their environment. Is there a room for further and further development. of the AI that controls the NPC? - Sure, we're always iterating on it. And again, as we look in the future,

it's more about us finding those more reactivity. to the player and also understanding their roles. in the world. So they're not just there, they're not just there for the player, as a sign post for the player. - But they're reacting to the player. But what about... Some of the richest experiences we have with people. is like the chaos of it. The push and pull, the unpredictability.

Is there something, I don't know if you've been following, but the quick amazing development of language models, the neural network, natural language processing systems, dialogue systems... Do you think there's some possibility of using sort. of these incredible neural nets that can. have open-ended dialogue? Basically chat bots? - Yep. I've seen some incredible demos. I do think it's coming. I don't know when.

And there's a little bit of a question like. what's ready for real deployment and release, versus hey, let's use that to generate some things that is then. static that we're giving to the players, versus it's generated on the fly, but it's definitely coming, it's definitely coming. And I think you'll see it in the types of games that we do. It has great application. - I love the idea though.

You'd be using AI to design different. NPCs and then testing if they're good enough, if they're like a little too crazy, you don't want like the super... - Right. But if we go back to it being reactive, some of that bot stuff, it's pretty, it's incredible. It's then translating that into voice and then. is that being done by the client? Is it being done on a server? Is it baked into the game? There's like different flavors of it.

- So there's still computational challenges, like how do you actually make that happen? - Right. - Well what about, oh, in terms of creating the feeling of an NPC, oh, what's the role of voice actors and... - Awesome. Yeah, we work with a ton of voice actors and they bring. so much to it. And that's the thing, we can write some stuff and the best ones get. in there and make it so much better or even ad lib things.

And so we do a lot of voice recording, and we used to do it kind of like at the end. of the project, and now we do it throughout. We start really early and we just start recording. So we're recording for years and years, literally, probably three years, four years. - So part of the actual experience of the recording. will help define the characters and the tone of the game. - Right. And we'll go back sometimes and, hey, we really like this, we want more of this. Let's write, let's do another session. Or hey, we don't think this character's actually working.

We want you to do different. You're gonna be someone else now. Sorry, that got cut. - Do you ever try to sort of imagine that people fall. in love with the characters, with the NPCs? - [Todd] I do. - Like, I mean do they get really attached to the... - Oh yeah. I mean, I've done it in games. - These are like close friends, right? Like you can, like you miss them. - [Todd] A hundred percent. - Isn't that part of the thing? - Actually, like whenever I'm playing a game and there is, if there's like a friendship option or make friends. or a romance thing, I find those moments really,

I enjoy them. I find them pretty impactful emotionally. to what we're doing. And so we've done a little bit of it. It's one of the things that we actually have. pushed in Starfield. So we have a number of companions, but for them we go, I won't say super complex romantic, but more complex relationships than we've had in terms. of not just some state of they like you or they don't.

like you, but they can be in love. with you and dislike something you did and be pissed. at you temporarily and then come back to loving you. - So that relationship status, if it's complicated, that they're existing in that gray area, it's complicated. We're not dating, we're just, we're... - Well it's, in a lot of games previous stuff, you just work your way up. They like you more, more, more and now you're in a relationship. And when you make 'em upset, you drift out of like, it never happened.

You drift out of it. Whereas we wanted one where, okay, we can be in a relationship and we've committed. to each other in some way, but I just did something that really made you angry, and as opposed to just drifting outta that status, you're in a temporary, I don't like what you did state. - Wow. So some greater degree of complexity. in the relationship with a companion? - A little bit. - A little bit? - I don't wanna oversell that part, but my point is, I think those things where you meet a character.

in a game and you do spend time with them, a companion in a game, and it leads to romance, myself and others and I find a lot of players, those moments are really, really impactful and special to them 'cause they did. put in the time. That's another thing that I always come at it with, which is, I think people who don't play video games, they sometimes think like, oh that's, I don't know, that's a waste of time. Or that's not real. That's not like, you're not getting a lot out of that. Like, well, you haven't really experienced. it in the way that you can because these moments.

that I spent in games, not the ones I made, other ones, when I was growing up or even now, those are, that is important time to me. Like, I love those moments. I felt really like proud of what I accomplished. And we want people to have that in our games. And the fact that. they have had those experiences and we hear from them. and how important it's to them, it's like, no, this is really, really special. - Yeah, it's, I mean from a game design perspective,

I wonder if you can honor the time you spent together. with the game, because sometimes there's a heartbreak. at the end of the game. Like when you're, when you leave a game, there's a, yeah, it's a really complicated relationship actually. 'Cause when you leave a game, it's almost like leaving a romantic partner, because it's like you spent so much meaningful. time together and there's a sense.

in which it was ephemeral, like it, this is not, this... - [Todd] Did it happen? - Yeah, it didn't really happen. It was good. It was like you went to Vegas, you got drunk and stuff, but like, and now life goes on. I wonder if there's a way to sort of always carry. that with you. I mean, I guess with words you can kinda share with others. Like... - It's weird, I don't, like, now that we're in the age where you have achievements.

and you can look at your library and see your hours. and games, like that's like, it's almost like a scrapbook now. Like I wish, one of my wishes was like, I wish I had that achievement list for everything. Like back to the late '70s. - Like every game you played? - Right. When... - Yeah, yeah. Like you, I mean that's one of the cool things with Xbox. Like we're moving towards that direction. It'd be cool to be, from like childhood. The first time you play video game it will actually.

tell you what is the first game you... - But you know what, kids today, they will have that. - They will have that. (laughs) And see... - But you could look back and see, oh my god, I put 1000 hours in Daggerfall. - What is the first- - And my last save was 1997. - Last save... Man, I don't know, Golden X maybe. I'm trying to think what was the first game. I've ever played. No, it's probably Commodore 64 games. Yeah. The arcade games. Okay.

You mentioned Starfield. What is Starfield and what's the origin story of this game? - We had always wanted to do something. where you explore space, the explore space role playing game. So take the kinda games that we make and give. it a little bit of a different spin. And the other games that I loved, there was a pen and paper RPG I loved, Traveller. It was one of the first games I made for the Apple II. Didn't ever, I never finished it, right,

I'm just doing it on my own. And I loved this game. Starflight was one, Star Control II was a game. that I loved. SunDog was a big one in the Apple II days that a lot. of people don't know that I loved. And so a lot of us in the studio felt, it was time to do something new. We're going between Elder Scrolls and Fallout and going back. and forth and I mean, we love that, but hey, we've always wanted to do this, explore the galaxy science fiction game.

Now is the time to do that. - And that's a brave move. So Fallout's post-apocalyptic on a single planet. Elder Scrolls series is on a single planet. So this is going out into the open world of many. star systems, many planets. I saw that it's thinking about 100 star systems.

and 1000 planets available to explore. What is that world of stars and planets like? - Well, you mentioned Daggerfall, we go back to some of that. Well the first one we did it was how are we gonna. render a planet? Like pull it off for the player? Like can we? Or do we have to sort of do it where you can't land. on all of 'em, where you're landing in a very. controlled small world space that we kind of craft. and you would have a very limited set of those.

If you go back to tone like, well, that's probably the wrong tone and how can we say yes? Like I wanna land on that ice ball. So it started, we started the game. right after Fallout 4, so 2016. And the first thing we did was, how can we have a system to generate these planets. and make them look, I'll say, reasonable as opposed to fractally goop.

- What's the technical definition of goop? Fractally goop? - Fractally goop. You've probably seen a lot of like simulations, whether they're space things or landscape things. where they're using fractals and just the landscape. does not look real, it's just, this is like highs and lows and it's muddy. And so we did find a way, we came up with a way, had prototyped of building tiles, like large tiles of landscape the way we would. usually build them. We kind of generate them offline, hand-do. some things and end up with these very realistic.

looking tiles of landscape. And then built a system that wraps those around. a planet and blends them all together. And we had pretty successful results with that. And so we thought, yeah, we could do this. And so there was a big design kind of problem to solve. in terms of, well, what's fun about landing on a planet. where there's potentially nothing?

'Cause there's a lot of planets and moons if you kind of, right, in reality that, well, there's nothing on 'em except resources. And so we spent a lot of time figuring out, okay, let's just lean in on, that can, A, be a lonely experience. As long as we tell the player, here's what's there, here are the resources that are there, go find them. But I equate it to that moment of, we said about listening to the wind go. and watching the sunset. And I do think there's a certain beauty to landing.

on a strange planet, being somewhat the only person there, building an outpost. And we are modeling all of the systems 'cause. that's how we like to do things. So you can watch whatever that gas giant or moon, it will rotate and go and sunrise, sunset and all of those things that you would expect. And it's all really happening. And most people probably won't notice or appreciate. all of that. But I think it gives them the ability to say,

I wanna go do that and see that on that place. As long as we tell them, hey, the quest leads over here, here's where the handcrafted content. is that you would expect. And then here's more of the open. procedural planet experience. Long answer, I dunno if I answered your question. - There's no, the questions are stupid and the answers. are really, so that's how this works. So this is the world's most immense simulator. of the human condition of loneliness?

'Cause I can't imagine a more lonely experience. - I mean, you put it that way. I don't know that was the goal, but... - Just on a planet alone, I just, that must be, I mean, a deep embodiment of what loneliness is like. I mean it's the both the on the, like when you hike alone, there's a, there is a deep loneliness to that. It's like, it's humbling that this thing will last. much longer than you.

It's been here way before you. - Is it the line from the moon landing? Beautiful desolation? It's Buzz Aldrin, is it? - Beautiful desolation? Is that what you said? - I think so. - Beautiful desolation. Well... - Something like that. - But that's just words. There's a feeling to it. And you want that feeling to be real. You just hear, there's some resources here. I just feel like it'll hit people a certain moment like. it does for me with Skyrim. Like, holy shit, I'm here alone. And the, and whatever cruel nature.

that's out there doesn't really care about me. - Exactly. - That's the experience. So you wanna create the whole planet and you wanna. have many of them. - We have, we do have many. But once you build that system, I think the numbers become, I mean honestly a little bit... We wrap it in so we can name them all and have. a finite set even though it's a very, very large number, but a set that we can validate and know.

about even though it's a huge number. But once you, once you're building a system that can. build a planet, I mean a planet is sort of infinite space. We go back to the Daggerfall analogy, right? If you have systems to build that much space, doing 100 planets or 1000 or 10,000 or a million. planets is not, it's just, you just press, you just change the number, press the button. But you can't name them all, you can't control, like when you're getting in really big numbers, hey, what does this system way out here feel like.

if you take your ship and jump that far? We do level the systems. When you go to system you'll see, oh, this is like a level 40 system. And us being able to at least control that scale. is how we kind of ended up with the hundred-ish. systems we have. - What are the levelings? What do you mean by level? - Maybe like when you look at a map in a game, it says this is the area for low level players. This is level one. - Oh got it, got it. - Yeah, yeah. So we do that on a system basis, star system.

- I read that space travel is considered dangerous. in this game. Can you explain. - That's more of, that goes back to a tone thing, right? When you actually play the game, 'cause it's a game... Like we don't really kill you when you fly out in space, but it has a tone of there's some effort involved, and we've dialed it back as we've been making the game. Whereas we used to run out of fuel, you jump and get stranded, which on paper was a great,

like, it's a great moment when you get stranded. and you have to press this beacon, you don't know who's gonna come. Turns out that's not like, it just stops your game. We found you'd be playing the game and ran outta fuel. Okay, I guess I'll just wander these planets trying. to mine for fuel so I can get back to what I was doing. It just, it's a fun killer. - That's too realistic of a simulation. of the human condition. - Yeah, no, the idea was, well, it's, a few games do that. If you had like a hardcore, you're right, a hardcore survival mode,

that's the kind of thing you would do, maybe we'll do it in the future, but it's more of like a tone, how they build their ships, do they have all the right things for safety? We do get into environmental things on the planets, in your space suit, obviously a lot of different space suits and buffs. for the gases, the toxicity or the temperature. on various planets. - Are there robots? - Yes. - Those companions, are they robots by chance?

Can you, can you... - One of the companions is the robot Vasco. Yeah. - Okay. So they have a name and a personality and so on and... - Vasco does, and then there's a whole bunch of, I call 'em generic robots. So you like we use them for utility, you know, okay, people, we actually dialed them back. 'Cause if you think about, well, you know a lot about this, more than me, in terms of... - I'm offended right now, you calling robots generic and bad... - No, no, no. The ones we use, the ones we use, we made them more generic. - Sorry, I'm very sensitive about this.

- I understand. If you were to chart the future, you would say robots would have a much bigger role. in our future than we are presenting. But that was the tone thing. So we, most of our robots are there as utility robots. and there are some combat ones as well as enemies. - So it's the deeply human world. - Very much. Yes. - In terms of tone. So have you talked to Elon about this, about this game, is there- - A little bit?

- How much of reality, like the work of SpaceX is an inspiration. for the decisions made in this game? - I wouldn't say it's for the decisions we made, but visiting SpaceX and walking in there, it was, it's like the Avengers meet NASA, it's like the most amazing, and here we're building the next gen, like see the dragon stuff before it was, other people saw,

like just I was really in awe. This giant machine that looks for imperfections. on the surface of these giant fuselages, just whenever, and because we're in DC, go to the Air Space Museum a lot. And so whenever I look at those kind of things. or you'll visit the Space Shuttle, sort of overcome. with how big it is and I go stand back by the engines.

and think about that thing leaving orbit, and one of the things that Elon really impresses, like we are reaching the edge of physics on a lot. of this stuff where, how hard it is to leave orbit, the gravitational pull, and like, so the engineering that has gone into that, our space program, what he's doing now, I just marvel it. I don't understand, right? I'm not at that level, but I marvel at the kind of human ingenuity and scale.

I was on the Delaware coast last month, and I went, I was outside for some reason, it was dark, and I saw this crazy light in the sky, and I thought it was like a helicopter and then. it didn't go away. And I'm like, someone, what is that? And I call my, we had, with some friends, hey, does everybody see this? What is that? And we just stood dumbfounded looking at this thing.

in the sky. And like, that is a UFO. Nobody takes their phone out. Everyone. I'm with like four people, everyone is too dumbstruck. You would think, why don't you take a picture. of this thing? And the next day we found out, it was in the news, it was the SpaceX launch in Florida, and I'm seeing. it from Delaware, Maryland area. It was one of the most, it was incredible. It's just, even just that, I am in complete awe.

- Is there some aspect to that you can replicate. the majestic nature of that in the video game? - I wish I had the answer to that. I think some of it we were doing, when you're standing on a planet and you see. the other moons go by. And then you realize I could get my ship blast off. and land there and build myself home. I think that's pretty cool. There's a minor thing we do, which is we have other ships come and go.

from the star ports when you're there. So you'll be in a city and then you hear, (imitates engine). this and you hear the engine, you look up and a ship is taken off or coming... Like there's nothing for you to do. But it's, I think it's awesome. - Yeah. Yeah. So then that's all about creating the soundscape to feel... - Seeing it and like, oh, that's real, that's a ship that, or you jump into a system and you see these freighters. and sometimes they contact you. Like it's not all just like jumping and combat.

- Do you ever think about the fact that science. fiction seems to make, it has a way of creating reality, not just kind of predicting it or imagining it. It's almost like the thing you put. out there with a video game like this, like Starfield, that you kind of anticipate, it kind of fuels people's imagination what is possible.

- Maybe, I don't know. I can't say, you're making me think now. about other science fiction, that movie I love, "Minority Report". It's more of like a, not a space movie, but more like looking at the future. If you look at a lot of the things in that movie, it's almost like, I think those are coming true. - Yeah. I mean, is that the one that you do interface this like... - It's the interfaces and then the he way looks. as child's more like a holographic almost AR VR kind.

of thing or digital billboards or trying. to predict human behavior... There's like, there's just a lot of future stuff. in that movie. As it comes to sci-fi, to your other question, I don't know. I dunno. - Well I think it does and it's interesting. I mean I suppose you're trying to create. the most realistic, sticking to the tone, the most immersive, realistic world. And almost by accident you create the thing.

that is possible, because you want it to be realistic. in some deep sense, so accidentally can become the possible. And then that places that idea in people's heads. I mean if humans are ever to become. a multiplanetary species, we need to play games. We need to read sci-fi to help imagine. that that's possible. To look outside of Earth, to look outside, look up on the stars and then we can actually.

travel out there. I don't know, there's power to sci-fi to do that. I guess you shouldn't feel the pressure of that. - I don't know if I'd make the leap now, that's all, that what we're doing might... Now, maybe, one of our, hopefully it might inspire some young people. who are headed in that direction of like, oh, I thought about getting into space and space. exploration and being an engineer, doing these things and I played this game.

and it really sparked that interest in me, so I'm gonna go take that as a field and maybe. that's the person who goes and does some of these things. - Yeah. Because in the next couple of decades, likely a human being will step foot on Mars, which are. the first steps towards us becoming multiplanetary. - And then if you read some of the stuff. they're doing with the James Webb telescope and them. being able to look for signs of life on other planets...

It's quite fascinating. And recent stuff I read say they think in 20. years they will. So it's actually quite encouraging to think, almost a dream of mine, like in our lifetimes. that we discover life on another planet. - Yeah. Especially if it's intelligent life. I've been talking to a lot of biologists and a lot. of folks, I imagine there's life everywhere out there. - The numbers are, would say so, yes.

- The challenging question is what it looks like. and how much of it is intelligent. So a lot of biologists tell me the big difficult leap. is from the prokaryotes to the eukaryotes. So like the complex life, it could be that a lot of our universe is. just filled with bacteria. - Well I believe, if I'm understanding it right, that there's two ways they're gonna look at planets, when they can look at, they can read, hey, this planet has this kind of gas, they can now look at the ones that are created. by potential life forms and then the ones that are created,

the byproducts of industry. So there's only certain ones that are created. if you have a society there. And that they can start looking on these types of, and these types of star systems and these planets. But it takes a lot of time 'cause you have to book time. on that telescope. You have to like look at that planet over a long. period of time. But in theory, given enough time, given the amount of space out there, we would find one.

- That would be a cool thing in this short life of ours. to find out definitively. that there is an industrial intelligent civilization. out there, before you contact them, so like die, end your life, not knowing the rest of the story, but just know that it's out there. That's a cool, and then if you have kids be like, well, this one's on you. F this, I'm out. - And I'm fascinated by what it would do to the way,

I think in a positive way, the way humanity thinks about itself here. Like no, there is definitively other life out there. - I mean both things. If there isn't life out there, that's also a huge responsibility. Both are super exciting. If we're alone, it's super exciting. because there's a responsibility to preserve. whatever special thing we have going on here. This, whether you call it the flame of consciousness.

or whether there's consciousness or intelligence, that's a special thing. Preserve it, have it expand. But if there's others out there, I mean that, like, that sparks that drive for exploration, of reaching out into the stars and meeting them. Most of them probably wanna kill us. (laughs). So, but luckily we have the military industrial complex. on Earth that builds bigger and better weapons. all the time. - We have Space Force. - Space Force.

- [Todd] Right. - It will both protect us and destroy all our enemies. (laughs) This is 100% a video game we're living in. Okay, back to dragons. So blink once if when Elder Scrolls VI is coming out, but are not going to tell me. - Okay. I have a vague idea. - Okay. Vague idea. So like if you have the quantum mechanical.

interpretation that allows for multiple universes, in the universe where you didn't blink, what would that Todd tell me about the year it's coming up. Would it be 2025? - That's a trick question. - Or '26. - I was asked that question in many ways, but never like that. - Yeah. I thought I would try to sneak it. And I mean there is of course no answer, because... - I wish it was soon. Like we don't, we want 'em out too, you know.

And I wish they didn't take as long as they did, but they do. And look, I mean, if I could go back in time, would never have been my plan to wait as long. as it's taken for it. - So you love that world, the Elder Scrolls world. - Well look, it's part of who I am, spent more time there than anything else. in my life probably, right? So, it's, deeply love it. We all do. It's a part of us.

And when you aren't doing it for a while, you really do miss it. And when I look at what we're doing, have planned for that game, and I was in a meeting yesterday, I was like, I just wanna play all this right now. But it, we're gonna make sure we do it right. for everybody and we do have to approach it... People are playing games for a long time. Skyrim's 11 years old, still probably our most played game.

And so we don't see it slowing down. And people will probably be playing it 10 years. from now also. So you have to think about, okay, people are gonna play the next Elder Scrolls game. for decades, two decades. And that does change the way you think. about how you architect it from the get go. - What are some elements that change the way...

Like how do you make a game that's playable for 20 years? - I know we're trying to figure that out... (laughs). - There is some elements, I should pause on that. Part of me, I'm of course asking, jokingly, I'm excited for it. But I think Skyrim is an amazing game still. I really enjoy it still. - Yeah. And you know what the content, the, even if think if you step away from it for a while, then play what I'll put say the vanilla. version without mods. If you go and haven't played it in a while,

there's always a new way to play it. But then if you look at the mods and what creators. are doing to it, we think that is just awesome. It's something that we've always supported. We're gonna keep supporting. We've hired a large number of modders. that are now professionals. We wanna support the people who are doing on their own. so they can be professionals on their own. - How do you create a world that's moddable? So you think of designing the game. from the start as that enables mods?

- Yep, absolutely. So it starts with us, like everything we're doing okay, a modder, a content creator's gonna have to do it, use our tools... Now we do clean them up for release, because if you're like a developer in house, you can deal with some kludginess when you're putting. stuff together, when you put it out for people, we do clean a lot of it up, then there's still a lot, obviously a learning curve there. But we have, look, we have people been doing it for 20 years with us.

- What's involved with modding? I'm actually quite noob-ish at this. And I'm almost afraid to ask, 'cause now that you explain to me I'll, I fear. I will spend a very large amount of time creating mods. - Well we have an editor, you can download. on Steam, the Creation Kit for our games and then. it loads up the world and you could do something really, really small, like change the color of the weather, and it creates a little plugin file, we call it, a modification of the game. And then you can run your game with that. It's on console now, that, the mods, not the editing.

And it's just been incredible. Our community there has been amazing what they do. with the games... - So a lot of it is the visuals. - A lot of people do visual things 'cause. it's the easiest thing to do first. or they're building new space. There's some great things with like, I love the Khajiit follower mod for Skyrim. It's awesome. There have been quest lines... Those things just take a really, really long time.

And so someone is gonna do that. That's almost like, it takes 'em a long time. It's more than a hobby. And we're always looking at ways that we can make it like, hey, they can turn a career into it 'cause. it's just awesome. - What about, is there any possibility in doing a mod. for the, some of the AI stuff? - There is, and I've seen some,

but to really move it along, if they're using the tools that we already put out there. So to really move the AI along, you'd have to get in the code, which some people have figured out ways to hack. in and do things with script extenders. But for the most part, like really pushing it, it does take us, which is why you see, when we have a new game come along, the palette that they have is, there's so many more things they can do. - Well, I've built bots that play the driving games. But they do that by just taking,

reading the screen and doing basic, not basic, it's actually pretty complicated, but computer vision, doing the control. But you're basically simulating the human player. To do that for Skyrim or for one, some of the open world games... That's literally, you have to create AGI to be able. to play the, those open, well, maybe not. Maybe you can create a super dumb, like just a two-handed sword and just keep. swinging until everybody... - There, look, there's some bot stuff. out there that does it. We have some very,

very dumb bots that we use to run through the world. to test it, that we'll deploy on a whole bunch. of servers just to... We do it every day. We run through every space. We're doing it with Starfield. - And them just running... They're all out there. - Well, it does it very quickly. It loads up every place in the game and runs around. a little bit and then loads the next place and runs. around a little bit. We're just testing like, did it crash, what's the memory growth, what's the, get a report, here are all the places where the frame rate wasn't. up to snuff. And then we do have one that will play on its own.

It's heavily scripted, but it lets us test... Every time we make a build, there's a bot that runs through like the first one. or two main quests. Like it'll just play it. That way we know, do we break anything? 'Cause you don't wanna waste like QA's time, like you guys broke it again within five minutes. So, yeah. - So that's for like broken stuff? - [Todd] Right. - I wonder if you can build a bot that estimates. the quality of the experience. - Oh my gosh. Okay.

Can you do that? - But just like the number, like how boring or not boring, the boring meter. - How many times you die. - How many times you die. Death, is death boring or exciting? That's a question. I mean, I don't feel like there's a balance to be. struck 'cause you always wanna be in fear. of death, against... - Yeah we always, we have this chart at work we use, which is like, if you think about any game. that you've played that you've put down, it's either about a frustration slash confusion or boredom.

You gotta put the player right in the middle of that. - But I've sometimes put down games from frustration. only to return again, stronger. - [Todd] Dark Souls. Yeah. - So I mean there that that's, I mean the challenge, that's part of it. It's, well, I don't know, actually Skyrim, I don't, I'm one of those, I mean I'm sure there's all kinds of humans. that you've interacted with about what they enjoy. But to me, I could enjoy Skyrim on every,

on any difficulty at the level, it doesn't, all of it. So it depends, the open world nature. of it is what's really compelling, not necessarily the challenge of the particular quest. and so on. But I'm not sure if that's the same. experience for everybody. - Do you play the survival mode? There's a survival mode in Skyrim. Was that Creation Club thing. It does, like, some hunger. It does hot and cold. It does some other systems that make it, in our minds, a more believable, and it was actually a Creation Club thing.

made by an external creator who is now full-time with us. - So can we actually, thinking about Starfield, thinking. about Elder Scrolls VI, go through the full life. of a video game you've created. So what's it take to take a game from the idea to find. the final product? What are the different steps along the way? - Great question.

Well usually it starts with, I mean honestly lunchtime conversations with a number. of us, hey, we think we wanna do this, this is what it's gonna be like. I mean look, with an Elder Scrolls, you know. you're gonna do it. It's a matter of when. We say, okay, what's the tone we're going for? Right? Where's it set? So we usually start with the world. And then we are always overlapping. So while we're making one game, as we are getting in the throes of it or wrapping it up,

probably by the midpoint of one game we've had. enough conversations to understand what the next. one's gonna be. What are the big ticket? Like where's it set? What's the tone? Is there a big ticket feature too. that make it really unique. And then when we're finishing one game, we start prototyping, sorry, before that we start concepting.

So we'll do concept art, and for one reason or another, I usually have the beginning of the game worked out. Like I like to think about, okay, how's the game start? What's the player do first? We do music early... So take Elder Scrolls VI, we figured out where it's set, what's the tone, what are the big features, we discuss the beginning of the game, which we've had for a very long time. - Where's it set again? I'm just kidding. (laughs). - Yep. And, in Tamriel and...

- Ah, dammit. Well at least we know, we narrowed it down that, yeah, that would be epic if it was like a portal. into another dimension. Anyway. - Then I like to do music. So we've already done a take on the music. for Elder Scrolls VI. - So you can sit there with the, with like the concept art and the music. You can feel it? - Music? No, no. The music we put in the teaser for it, this was 2018. We've taken that further obviously. And, again, we're working on the world.

You're then doing concepting and design for the world. And then once we we're wrapping up one game, we can really start prototyping the new one. and you're usually building kind of your initial spaces. And so we do like to do like a first playable, a smaller section of the game that we can sort. of prove out and show to people, hey, this is how it feels different, this is what it looks like, this is what's unique about it. Then we turn that into a larger chunk when more. of the team comes on when the other game is done.

And that's still what we call a VS, vertical slice. So you still don't have the full team on it. And it's a larger chunk of the game that you can play. And then once you feel good about that, you're gonna bring on the rest of the team. And we're fortunate that the other games we've done. are popular enough that we can be doing. DLC and content and those kind of things. while we're getting the one going. And then we're at full production where we're sort. of at maximum size. We just call that production. That's like the full production period.

And that, depending on the game, can run a year or two years, maybe more. And then you kind of have a finalizing, final six months to a year on a game, which is, okay, we've built everything now, and usually it needs a lot of glue where we have a lot. of very different elements that maybe aren't. clicking together the way you want outside. of the regular polish for levels and features.

And we're shaving and gluing and sticking things. together so that it's not this schizophrenic. game experience that things flow from one into another. - In terms of story, like on that level? - It's, no usually the story, the designers have done a really good job. It's more about game features and then. how they interact with the story or hey, I went from this experience to this experience. or picking flowers and alchemy feels like a different. game than, and then how is another character.

referencing that and how is that intersecting. with the skill system and the interface? Like the skill system and the interface is the party host. If you think about a game, most games, particularly what I like to do, is that's your person who says, welcome, do this, go here, check this out. And the skill system and the way it reacts. on the HUD, the interface of the game, is sort of leading you to the next thing.

And once you get that flow down and the rate. at which the game is giving you activities, then you're in like what we describe as a game flow, and it's not until really that last year... Before that, the game flow was just, it's not, it doesn't even exist in the way that you see. it in the final game. And that's what we're working on a lot that last year. - So at which point is like the set of skills.

of skill tree, the characteristics. of the roleplaying aspect of it, when is that set? The ideas? - We usually have it in the beginning, but it's just, we know it won't be done until that last year. We'll have one, but we know it's gonna get honed, because it's not until you really see, okay, how impactful is that one? How much are you doing it? Like how much are you really... And the main combat ones, they always win. You always know the players will drift. toward the combat type skills. 'Cause every character needs some amount of that.

But okay, well, how important is cooking? How important is alchemy? How important is these other type of activities? And then how do you balance them where when you load. up the skill menu, it isn't automatically give me plus 10 damage. - How do you get the, what about the combat system? That does seem to be an important part of a lot of games. - Start in the beginning every time. Yep. So usually when we're making that first playable, it's an area you can go through, some amount of dialogue,

some amount of combat. - How do you get the combat right? What's the secret to a great combat system? - Well, first, on a control side, helping the player when they don't realize it. There's a lot of tricks you can do with magnetism. in terms of the controller and where the attacks go. So it has to feel, the minute to minute has to feel really good in your hand. So there's a lot of animation time, right? And changing animation, so they're impactful. and they happen at a rate that the player feels.

like they're really doing it. And then ultimately it's the illusion that the enemies. are smart, but they really are there for you to kill 'em. Right? So they do a lot of things to just let. themselves get killed. They're not near as smart, near as smart as we can make them. 'Cause it turns out that is not fun. - Right? So there's a balance between, but there's a, that is,

I guess, a kind of AI, and it's a very. intimate interaction with an AI, 'cause it's like. there's a lot of stuff going on. It's not just very kind of shallow, like a dialogue or something like that. It's like there's a time critical nature of it, a lot of stuff is happening and if anything. feels off, it's gonna feel wrong. - Yep. All the games do it. It's not unique to what we do in terms. of how they handle combat scenarios.

And there's some games that just do it extremely well. in terms of, even in multiplayer, where you're playing bots and most people don't know it, or how a multiple enemy scenario is really... They don't all shoot you. They trade off. They're gonna wait. And one's like, right, I'll just wait my turn 'cause we don't wanna overwhelm 'em. But it feels, like you feel like you're overwhelmed. when there's six enemies, but a good game will, no,

they're gonna take their time. - Is there a science to it? Is it art? Is it... Like how do... - Yes, yes. I mean it's all of that. - So it's like an iterative process. where you try different things, you had different ideas? - Yeah, there's a lot of- - Animation. - There's a lot of timing, animation work, HUD work also, how does the reticule change? What are the little sound effects? - What about like the gamify, like that is fun?

- That goes back to the winning, you know. - So winning is fun? - Yes. - Death is not? - Yes, let the wookiee win. - I like how you have to dumb down the AI to make. it fun for humans. Because if you didn't, it would just be just slaughter nonstop for all humans. That's good to know. What about things like, you said cooking, like crafting, making potions and poisons and smithing,

weapons and armor, cooking... How do you get that right? What's interesting there? It's such an interesting, like, a lot of games don't have that kind of thing. So what role does that play in-. - I think we really cracked it in a way I like. with Fallout 4 actually, where when you're doing Elder Scrolls, we have like. the flowers and things and you have alchemy. And we took this to, okay, if it's post-apocalyptic,

what if everything in the world was. an alchemical ingredient of some kind. So breaking it down to their components. So when you walk around a world, like that, again, we like the simulation, we like the forks and the spoons and the cups and all that. Okay, how can I use those to create? So I love how it works, starts working in Fallout 4 where, okay, all these things I find, they have some value in creating or crafting outside. of a cup is worth one gold piece or one cap.

- By the way, I have to be honest, I haven't played Fallout 4, I played Fallout 3. I thought that was a legendary game. Can you make a case with Fallout 4 and I should, or should I just wait till Fallout 5? And when does that come? - I think you should play Fallout 4. Love to hear your thoughts. - All right. - It's a different game. - Skyrim is too, I mean it's... - We try to make them all different. They all have... - They are fundamentally different. - They all have their own tone. Yeah. So Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 intentionally. a very different tone. - Oh, really? Interesting. - Yeah.

- So what's that world like? What's the post apocalyptic world of Fallout? If you can just briefly take a stroll. into that world, tone-wise. - Well there's look, in entertainment, there's a lot of post-apocalyptic stuff, and what makes Fallout tick is the world that was. left behind, the world that blew itself up, this utopian world of nuclear energy and it all goes wrong. So I love the American dream of that,

like how they visioned the future in the '50s. and that blowing itself up. I think that's like a super interesting place to explore, which is why we always wanted to play in that world. And it does an amazing job of sort of weaving. the drama and darkness of a post-apocalyptic world. with B-movie humor. It winks at the camera sometimes, often actually.

And that when you're in that world, it just has this, its own unique flow and vibe, outside of anything else kind of in that genre. - So the Elder Scrolls has, or at least Skyrim has some humor. - [Todd] Has a little bit. - But Fallout leans into it a little more. - A little bit more. A little bit more, yeah. Yeah it does. It's like ironic humor. It's the duck and cover, to get under your desk if the bomb comes. and everything will be fine.

It's that type of humor. - So the funny thing is, I do think Fallout 3 is one of the greatest games ever. You've said that quote, when we started Fallout 3 in 2004, we obviously had. big ideas of what we could do with it and I talked. to a lot of people from ex developers to press. folks to fans. What made it special? What are the key things you'd want out in a new one? The opinions, and I'll put the mildly, varied a lot,

but they would all end the same, like a stern father pausing for effect, but do not screw it up. How do you not screw up a game? You have not screwed up many games, yet. - I mean back to the Fallout one. - [Lex] Yeah. - Yeah that was, look, that, I remember that, we were met with a lot of skepticism in terms of, oh, what are they gonna do with this? It was a beloved kind of isometric turn based role. playing game, you know?

Awesome for when it came out. And actually it was announced, we had finished Morrowind but not announced Oblivion. But because we'd acquired the rights, we had to announce it. 'Cause I think Interplay was the public company. I don't remember. I just remember we had to announce. it and we're thinking there, well, you're gonna, we're gonna piss off all the Elder Scrolls fans 'cause. we're announcing a Fallout game. We're probably gonna piss off the hardcore Fallout fans. 'cause we didn't make the original and clearly. we'll probably make a different kind of game.

So I do remember there was a lot of concern with all. of our fans and fans of Fallout at the time. And so I think it was pretty rewarding for us. that that game found the audience and success that it did, is one of my favorite projects that I've ever, ever worked on. And because it was so fresh for us and we had a very clear, like even before we had the rights,

like, this is the game we're gonna make, this is the kind of thing we're gonna do. And we had done Morrowind, we were working. on Oblivion, and it was kind of a breath of fresh air. to do it. And what's kind of remarkable is Fallout 3 comes. out just two and a half years. after Oblivion and we did all this DLC for Oblivion. So we were really, really kind of prolific in how our development, how it was going. So...

I just remember enjoying making that game so much. 'cause it was everything we were doing was new. - Which, as to the world creation, was there some innovation like technically. that was happening to you? - The world creation. Like it was obviously a different look, even though some of us, very few of us had worked on the Terminator things. The VATS system, the skill system... And we loved the original game so much, so you felt this responsibility to bring it back. in a big way and reintroduce it in a way that,

as much as we could, scratch the same itch when you play the original. game that had the same tone. - Are there some favorite things. to you about that world that just kind of connect you? - Fallout 3, I love, again, I usually start with the beginning. I love the beginning, I love the character generation. If you go, if you played it a lot or you're developing it, it starts to feel really long, but the first time you play it or second,

I just think it's awesome. And this idea, it's a hard thing to say, okay, we want you to feel like your character on the screen. Even when you play like a Skyrim, you don't know. what you were doing before that. But Fallout 3, you were born. in the Vault and you raised in the Vault and you lived. in the Vault, but you experience a part of that. So it's a very different, when you step out it, I think it really, I mean the visuals are the visuals,

but the emotional moment of stepping. out of the Vault, you feel like you lived your whole. life in the Vault. - That, and you feel like you have a sense of your past. - Right? And I need to find my father. - We should, isn't it possible to have that sense. with like the Elder Scrolls, like a life story, like childhood trauma and stuff, back to the human condition. - I mean you'd have to, like look, you do some of that stuff, but they go through menus,

pick your background... We're doing that in Starfield. Hey, pick your background. What you doing before this moment? - Can you pick your traumas and stuff? (both laughing). That's a mod. - [Todd] If you wanna make a mod, yeah, you go for it. - That and then also make a mod for like a therapist. - But a lot of, you know, is in your head. So you're gonna do that, you're gonna pick this background, you do these things and you're sort of like, this is who I was. And we intentionally with Elder Scrolls kind of make it a, as much of a blank slate. Elder Scrolls is a little bit more of a blank slate. game to who you are, which has a lot of positives and Fallout for us has.

been more of a, this was your life before, here's who you were, go be who you wanna be, but this is the background, it's a little more strict. - Now, this might reveal something about me, and speaking of childhood trauma, but I feel like there's. a lot of the meaningful. experience of a role playing game is not. just the development of the character throughout the game,

but the initial character creation, like you said. Is there something to that process that you found. to be powerful, like the design of that process? Because you think so much about that beginning. What, how much should be controlled, how much should be defined? The interface itself, the visual appearance. of the character too. 'Cause I feel like that you're loading in, you start to load in the world. that you're about to enter by creating. that character, right?

- Yeah, we think about it a lot. It's a really, really good comment and question. And it's more than... It has to set the whole stage, has to like pique your interest for the world. you're gonna enter. And we've done it so many different ways in terms. of when you actually go to make your character, when you're making the choice.

And one of the things over time that we've wanted. to avoid is people starting over. So there's a lot of intentionality around the types. of choices you have that can be undone or not undone. 'Cause what you, what game players want to is, I'll play it, oh, then I'll make a new character. But sometimes they do that because they realize. they made the wrong type of character. And as a designer you don't want that to happen.

So some people, and you get this common. in Elder Scrolls like, oh, you simplified it. No, no, no, no. We moved those choices into the gameplay, so that you don't make this character in the beginning. and then eight hours later realize you make. a horrible mistake. And so, okay, I'm gonna start over, like that to me is a really, really bad experience. So... - Also like life itself. But yes, go ahead.

- (laughs) But like life is, okay, so you can then... - [Lex] Fix it in game. - Right? I wish I had learned archery. Well, I'm gonna start tomorrow. So you can do that. Like the Skyrim character system, you know, is really designed around that. All you pick is like, what's your race? And that gives you some things, but there's nothing you can't get then on your own. It mostly, it sounds weird, but you mostly want that beginning character generation. to be visual, which you then can also change in the game,

and some starting skills that get you off to the type. of play that you want. But if you discover you don't like that type of play, as you play, you can move your character along. So we have moved away, post Oblivion, to a classless, meaning you don't have a strict character class, warrior, mage, thief, whatever in our games.

- And that's continuing for the... Do you, are you like thinking. of Elder Scrolls VI, you're already thinking. about that kind of stuff? - [Todd] Yep. - So you think of early on, like you said, the first few experiences in the game, you're already thinking through them. - Yep. Yeah, we know what the first few hours are like, we know what the character system is basically like. And... - So tonally, what's the difference. to you between Oblivion, Skyrim, Morrowind,

and Oblivion, Skyrim and Elder Scrolls VI? Like to me, I mean stuff blends together. But Oblivion, that's when you could make spells and stuff. - You could do it in Morrowind as well. Oblivion has some more guardrails on it. Morrowind's where you can really go. And Daggerfall. I don't remember if you can make spells. in Arena, I think you can, someone will correct me. You definitely can in Daggerfall, gets crazy, Morrowind, you can some, and then we start,

we started putting guardrails on it 'cause people. started breaking the game in certain ways. - Yeah. Why is it bad to break the game? Like you always want it to be-. - Well there's like one people love. in Morrowind where you could make these recall stones. and you could teleport to different areas, which you really need in that game. It breaks so many quests. - [Lex] Yeah. - And so as we, any quest we would then, we would do this exercise of designing a quest,

and then someone would say, and then I recall away, oh okay, the quest is broken. It's like, and then one day someone says, can we just get rid of that spell effect? Everyone's like, yes, please. And so it allowed us to make better content. - So a tangent upon a tangent upon a tangent, how do you create a compelling quest? Because there's all kinds of personalities of humans. that play these games, right? 'Cause I like the grind. - Well there's, look, there's multiple flavors of a compelling quest.

Some of them have very good upfront storytelling. You just like the story and the NPC that's giving. you this task, and you'll go through a more. handcrafted experience that the designers have done. a really, really good job on the space, it has some twist or surprise in the middle, and then the ending has some multiple options. that the player feels like.

they gotta do something, they made an interesting choice. But the best ones for me are actually were all. of that was far more open ended. The how I am going to accomplish this task. is completely up to me and I'm gonna find some. ingenious solution, a silly, this will like, this sounds very basic, it's gonna sound quite cliche and silly, it's like, go find me five daedra hearts or whatever,

like find me X of something that's hard to get. That's a very simple set... You can give a simple story set up for that. And we're not telling the player where to get those. And they think, now, where could I get those? And I actually find those to be just as rewarding. as the really handcrafted, well done, little bit more linear with an interesting choice. at the end, if those objects are in the world. in some believable way,

that there's usually some challenge at getting them. - How do you place objects in a world. in an interesting way? 'Cause it's a big part... - We have a level design... You cannot... People, oh, if they only knew how much we spend on, we have a clutter group, a group of people who clutter, like we, like... - What's clutter? - Clutter is all the stuff around, it's like interior decorators for treasure and stuff. and trash and... They go through every space and they clutter it.

Our level designers think about it a lot. These also become landmarks for the player, when you're walking through a space and oh. this is the place with this. And there is a logic to making a good level, as they say, with, even if you walk by like a little T intersection, that becomes like a decision point in the player's head. Like, oh, I didn't go down that way. But the more you do that, it looks easy on paper. But when you're playing a game, you actually kinda wanna limit.

those because he's trying to keep track of all. these decision points. Then they get lost. And yes, we have maps, but anytime the player's going to check a map. in a place like that, I feel that it's more of like a backstop. for certain players. If they need to check the map, I feel like we've kind of failed. - Got it. So it's just, there's a momentum to it, just pulls them in. - And you know, look, you played a lot of games, you played a lot of levels where you're just like, I'm a little confused or I don't know, I don't play...

And you play other levels where like, man, I just, yeah, I, it was great, I went through it, it was well balanced, I knew where I was going and it's not, you don't wanna ever be maze-y, as long as you know. where you're going, as long as you know you made those choices, then it feels fine. But as far as the treasure and all of the loot, it is really an art. We will not do enough clutter and then we will. over clutter and then there's too much stuff. everywhere and then we declutter every single game.

I wish we got better at it. It would save us a lot of time. - But you're constantly going by feel, like this is not, this is too much, it's not enough. - Right. Because the other thing is, look, it creates, people wanna pick everything up. They wanna click everything. So if you have too many things of importance in a room, it's like, it actually makes you feel a little tight. as a player. You're like, well, I need, I'm basically an idiot if I don't pick all the stuff up. You probably felt this way. - [Lex] Yeah, yeah. For sure.

- And like the moment where you decide. that you're just like, I've clicked so many things in this room, I actually am gonna leave that ammo canister there. But you feel like a dope. You've probably experienced this. - Yes. But also you have a joy from, if there's not many items and you found the one. and you got it, and you feel good. I got it. - And then it's finding like, oh, I stuck my head in this corner and I picked this lock. and I opened this locker and, oh, there was this thing I've been waiting for. - Yeah. What about like rarer and rarer items?

- That's an art, even more so of an art. I will say we have a ways to go there, in terms of finding the right drop rate for special items, we call 'em, your epic, rare, legendary... You look at games, like so many games do it and there are ones. that you just play and love 'cause they have it down. Destiny, Destiny 2 is great at it. Diablo, a series I love, sort of famously,

Diablo III, which I think is great. And they did an update, it mostly just changed the loot drops and it's like. this whole new experience. And there's a really real art to it. I think that we're still learning. We're still learning a lot and have to, we're trying to get better at it 'cause it's one. of those things where it drives you through the game. It's fun to get the treasure and... - Diablo and Skyrim have this interesting quality. of being extremely popular,

and there's a lore around like rare items. So it's a, it changes the dynamic of like you could. afford to have really rare items. - [Todd] Yes. - And then somebody finds it and that becomes like a thing. I mean, as you release a game, there's a, I mean a lot of people play and they start sharing. stories and so on. It's so interesting 'cause that's part. of the game experience is the stories of others. Right? - For us, 100%. Because we've been classically, with most of our stuff,

single player, that that water cooler shared experience, we would have a thing, like where we call 'em did you know moments? Like we gotta have a bunch. So you meet someone, they do, what are you doing? And then they say, did you know, if you go here and do this, what? Did you know? And that to us is aware of a lot of our community has. been sharing their stories and here's what you can do. - Has there ever been a temptation to create not.

a single player game that's gigantic? That's... - Well, we did Fallout 76. We have Elder Scrolls Online. Not game I created, but, look, that started as more classic MMO. Know the folks, they're part of our company who made. that game and it's insanely, insanely popular. - It is? Okay. So I should try it all. - They do some great storytelling quests. Like the actual mechanics aren't the same. as Skyrim, but the world is awesome... They've just done an incredible job.

It's about to be 10 years for that game as well. And they, it's just great community around that. - Yeah, that's, I haven't played that 'cause. there's a mobile Fallout game. Right? I need to play that. I was thinking of playing Diablo mobile too. - I mean, you can debate the monetization, but I would not, it's, I think they did a phenomenal, it's really fun. - On Fallout? What's... - On Diablo. - Oh, Diablo? - On the, yeah, well, Fallout, I definitely recommend that one.

Fallout Shelter. Completely different game. Diablo Immortal is, I was very, very impressed with that. Had a lot of fun. - On the mobile? - Yep. - What's the challenge of designing a game. for mobile versus the PC and console? - Well, obviously the screen size. Right? - Is that what you feel first? What's the fundamental change. in the philosophy of design? Does it constrain? Does it change the tone of the game? - Well, we've done a few things and we have a new. mobile game that we're working.

on that we haven't announced yet that I'm in love with. There are a couple things that you approach on mobile. Now, I can give you sort of the classic mobile. gaming thing and then what we do. A classic mobile gaming is really for short play sessions. 'Cause for the amount of people you're gonna get, the number that have the amount of time to sit. there for a long time and play it,

like a console game or a PC game is lower. 'Cause people are playing mobile games. on the move or whatever. And how it onboards you... 'Cause obviously most of 'em are free. So the tutorial, how the tutorial works, how it gets you into the game, because you haven't bought it, you haven't done this investment of buying. it and then saying, no, I'm gonna learn it. People don't care. So really understanding how they get into the game. Those two things are really the magic to mobile gaming. We have found though, with our games, typically Fallout Shelter, people will sit.

there for an hour or two. Like they will just sit there and play it. Like large numbers of people who play it for hours a day. - So it's a, there is a more, I don't know, addicting element to the mobile? 'Cause I guess you can spend more time... - If you look at, if you look at kids these days, they can stare at their phone for hours. That's all they do. That's where they watch everything. So it's also like a demographic thing. The younger audience, they would rather sit and stare. at their phone than play it on a big screen.

- I would just love to sort of list. out throughout human history, the evolution of sentences that began with, if you look at kids these days. - (laughs) It's true. It's true. - The kids of the kids these days will probably be. talking about, be doing like virtual reality. - Like I love mobile games though. I play a ton of 'em. I am like the game, my favorite game this year is Marvel Snap, this card game.

from the folks who did Hearthstone. You should really play it, if you like, do you like card games? - Yeah. - Do you like superheroes? - No. - [Todd] It's genius. You don't like superheroes? - No, I don't like superheroes. I never understood, listen, this never, this is growing up in the Soviet Union. I don't understand the, this, all right, well I don't understand, you're wearing a costume... It's silly to me. I can't, so you have to suspend, like you have to be able to immerse yourself.

and for some reason there's something about costumes... - Costumes? - Yeah, it doesn't get me, but then again I'm like into elves and dragons, so I don't understand, and I'm fine. - I think I get it. - Yeah. But the rest, at least the America, the western world disagrees with me. So... Even Batman, you have like little ears, but that's fine. They just, well, back. to Elder Scrolls and Starfield. So one thing I didn't ask you about, when you look at the timeline of 5, 6, 7, 8 years,

whatever it is to create a game, what's the role of the deadline, internally? Not publicly announced. - Keeps you honest. - Do you try to keep in your own brain a deadline, for the team a deadline? - [Todd] Yeah. All the time. - And when you set that deadline early in that development, do you try to set deadline, like that's really tough to reach? - No, we try to make it like, hey, this is our best guess. If you make it tough to reach, it's sort of,

you're gonna miss it. It's arbitrary. We really try to keep ourselves honest, 'cause it will let you know where you're at. Right. Wanna have first playable, we wanna be done with prototyping or design by this date. We wanna have first playable this date. We wanna have this. But, look, things happen, pandemic happens, people go home, it throws everything off or, you know, what you needed to do, because we're not just like making a game and then. moving everybody on, what you needed to do, like Skyrim was so popular, we kept people on that game for longer.

So it delayed a little bit, we were doing the Fallout 4 at the time 'cause we can't, weren't, hey, we really shouldn't move the people. onto Fallout yet 'cause we're doing these things. in Skyrim and we should. So it just sort of keeps you honest for where you're at. - Does it get super stressful as you get closer? Are you trying to avoid announcing anything? Is there a temptation to announce it? - Well, I've done it always. Right? I've announced Starfield, we're pretty loud. with a release date that we then had to delay. So...

- Was that tough? - It was. It was, but it was the right thing to do. And... - How do you know it's the right thing to do, like when you sat down and looked at it, like, this is not ready? - It's not an exact science, but you can look at what needs to be done. and the amount of time you have, and we've done it in the past where we can get it done. We believe we can. And so you're fighting that personal belief. that you can get something done. But there's a lot of things that go into release date.

with marketing and publishing, and we've reached a point where, on Starfield, where it was pretty clear to us, even though you wanna say you can get it done, that the risk involved with that, to the fans, to the game, to the team, to the company, we're part of Xbox now, to everybody it was, we should really, we should really move it and give it the time it needs. - So you mentioned part of Xbox.

Microsoft bought Bethesda and ZeniMax for $7.5 billion. (laughs) Well, what's it like joining the Xbox team? You've, I think, written about it. What are the exciting aspects of that? - You know, when your company goes through a change. like that, no matter what it is, even if it's somebody that you've worked. with for a long time, you never know what you're in for.

You hope. And I had worked with them for, since we started doing console stuff with Morrowind, was they came to us, came to me and, hey, you should make this game for the Xbox. And so when they were making that console, had a great experience with them. And then on the 360 with Oblivion. And so I guess the point is, we felt that we had a very good relationship. with everybody there. And we understood what their culture was.

But you never really know. And I mean this honestly, it's been awesome, that the culture inside. of Microsoft and Xbox that people see from the outside. is the culture inside. The way they talk about players, the way they'll invest in the players, the risks they'll take, the thoughtfulness from Phil Spencer on down has been, you know, feel really, really lucky. And then a game like Starfield where, look, we've had a lot of success with the games.

that you talked about. But we've never been kind of the platform seller. You know, The Game for a platform for a period of time? And so there is a lot of pressure there. There's a lot of responsibility there to make sure. we deliver for everybody. - Is there a chance that Starfield is exclusive to Xbox? - It is exclusive. - It's officially already? - Yep. Yes. - So you're, (laughs) I get it. So extra pressure also creating a new world.

- Yeah, it's new, but keep in mind, for us that exclusivity is not unique. Even though we've done PlayStation stuff and I think. the PlayStation 5 is just an insane machine, they've done a great job and we've had great success. on PlayStation, we were traditionally a PC developers. in the beginning. We transitioned to Xbox, became our lead platform. Like Morrowind's basically exclusive to Xbox, Oblivion. was exclusive to Xbox for a long period of time...

Skyrim DLC was exclusive... So we've done a lot of, like, our initial stuff is all Xbox. So we get into development and saying we're focused. on Xbox, and it's not abnormal for us in any way. It's been kind of the norm. And from a development side, I like the ability to focus. So our ability to focus and say, and have help from them, the top engineers at Xbox to say, we are gonna make this look incredible on the new. systems is like, from my standpoint,

it's just awesome. - What's the difference in creating the console. versus the PC? I also have to admit, I've never, is this shameful? Actually, you should recommend to me, I've never played Skyrim or any of the games. you've created on Xbox. - Really? - Yeah, and on console. I play, I managed to play very little Xbox. - Yeah, sure. I mean, look, there's the obvious interface part, between mouse and keyboard and then a controller. But when you're looking at hardware, PCs, it's tough, right?

Because you're looking at, well, what are their driver versions? What kind of monitor do they have? What is the actual refresh rate of X, Y, and Z? We're used to it. But anyone will tell you, give me the hardware that I know I'm writing it for, you know this. And the Series X is just an incredible machine. And now-. - And you know what it is, you know-. - You know what it is. And now that we're part of Xbox, getting the people.

who built it to show you how to make it really, really dance is just awesome. - Is there a case to be made... Did you get people that enjoy, people that do both PC and Xbox, that enjoy Xbox more? Like that if they have a choice, they enjoy it? - I think that depends on, and look, now that you can kind of cross, you can take your save and go. between and all those things... - [Lex] You can? - Yeah. It depends on if...

- For which games. So for Skyrim? - If you have the Game Pass PC version of it versus. Steam, not via Steam right now, not via Steam. - Got it. And so there's the Game Pass. So I'm like learning about this. So there's a Microsoft, so this can be. on Game Pass, and then you can... Yeah. If you can take it from PC through Game Pass... - But I think it depends on like, like, for me, like what's my physical mood? Do I wanna lean back on a sofa? - Exactly. - Right? My actual physicality of it is what determines.

where I wanna play. Do I wanna be two feet from a thing right now? And sometimes I like that. I am more of a console player just because I sit. on my PC at work all day. Like, I play a lot of video games. So when I get home and I wanna play something, I am a sofa, screen, controller person. - Let me ask you a ridiculous question. So you've created some of the greatest games ever. I think there's, the question will be what's the best.

game of all time? All right. Just gimme a second. - Tetris. - Tetris? All right. Yeah, that's interesting. - Have you read the book on Tetris? - No. - You should read it. Particularly someone who grew up in Russia. - Yeah, that's a, I'm sure there's an interesting story. The fact that there's a book about Tetris is fascinating. Is there a book about Mario? I would love to find out more, but I think, I would put, personally I would put Skyrim. - I'll take that. Good answer. - At number one for me. Which is tough, however you put it.

'Cause you could also make the case. out of the Elder Scrolls series, like what do you actually value more? If you put Tetris and Super Mario up there, then like the credit goes to Morrowind maybe over Skyrim. I don't know where the biggest leaps are, but overall I think it's Skyrim. Well, for you, if you're not allowed to pick any. of the games you were involved with, what are some interesting candidates for you that are.

just games that inspired the world, impacted the world, shook the world in terms of what video games are. able to do? - Well first, I'm just sort of like, hearing you say that you think Skyrim the best game. of all time is quite, like, thank you, and it's an incredible thing to hear. And when I think about, well, I have a couple answers, there's ones that are like personal to me.

Ultima VII is probably. - Yeah. Can you talk about Ultima? Like you said that as an inspiration. I never crossed that world. - [Todd] Well... - What kind of game is it? - It's a role playing game, circa 1992, '93, '94. And it Ultima Online first really visual online world. in that way. But for me, that was a virtual fantasy world, where I had, you could break bread, you could pick all this stuff up. I mean anyone who's played Ultima and plays our stuff.

can see the kind of touchstones and callbacks. to that, or inspirations. And the other thing that I loved about Ultima was. they were all different, right? That they iterated and there weren't necessarily. what I'll call a plus one sequel outside. of Ultima VII Part Two. Clearly a plus one sequel. But they each had their own tone. I love like the boxes,

it's something that we get into as well. I love this idea that a game also is this tangible thing. - Oh, when you buy it... - You bought the cardboard boxes and the way. they were designed and Ultima VII is black. and Ultima VIII's the fiery gate. and the paintings on them... And it just does... - Does that break your heart a little bit? That that culture is a bit gone? - A little bit. A little bit. And that's also why I like, this goes to video gaming or any other digital.

things where digital ownership has great value to people. So I like looking at my collections of games. even digitally, I wanna see nice, in the same way you wanna see nice album art, wanna see nice cover art for our games. And we spend a lot of time in them, so that take a look. at Elder Scrolls and Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. We want those boxes to look good next to each other. Going back to the video games, I always mention Tetris because I think it's...

Obviously I love virtual worlds and those kind of things, but for the time and what an interactive like video games, sort of the simplest form, and sort of think you can put Tetris in front. of just about anybody and they'll enjoy it, and it's got some moment of challenge. and it's just so elegant. It's like, to me, like this very pure game that only works 'cause.

it's a video game. - And I think mobile games figured out some. of the magic of Tetris. The simple... - [Todd] Some of them have. Yeah. - And, but Tetris did it a long, long time ago. That you can really create. that immersive experience without. - But for me, the Ultima, Civilization. As far as a grand strategy game.

Pac-Man I mentioned in terms of bringing games. into the mainstream in a way that captured people. that nothing before it had. Super Mario, Donkey Kong, everything Nintendo, are probably the best game makers in the world still. They know who they are. They know what they wanna do. Always in awe of what they create. - I gotta ask about a game I haven't played, but people put up there as one of the greats, Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Have you gotten a chance to play... - A lot of it? Yes. Yes. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. - What do you think about, I mean it's a very different experience. I've played other Zeldas, than the open worlds you've created. But it is also an open world. - It is. It's my favorite Zelda 'cause obviously. I like open world stuff and the one thing. that they do really, really well is they don't constrain you. Some people, you know, even some of the things we do constrain. you a little bit more. Zelda says, here's the whole thing,

and you are constrained by the actual player abilities. you haven't earned yet, not some arbitrary barriers. And so I think they just did a phenomenal job. It's a magical game. - It really feels open. - It's, 'cause it truly is. Yes. - What about, I mean, is it, I just like asking you about some open world, a very different one is the world. of either Grand Theft Auto or Red Dead Redemption?

- Both, love. I would put GTA III, Grand Theft Auto III up there. with the landmark kind of usher. in the open world when that comes. out on the PlayStation 2, even though there was GTA 1. and 2, this was an all new thing. with the mobster storytelling. - First 3D version, I guess. - It was. Then Vice City's kind of a fast follow, which could be my favorite one... I loved all the Grand Theft Autos. Think they're really phenomenally well made games.

Same with Red Dead. I think Red Dead Redemption 1 could be my favorite story. Like, highly recommend finishing that game. - So you like both the story, you like the grittiness of that? 'Cause they have a bit of the, like, I guess, if you like the Fallout, there's the humor, the... I don't know what it is. It's the lighthearted humor of it, but also the brutality of human nature is in there too.

But it's like, and also some of the fun they create. with the music when you drive and stuff like that, they create a world. There's a tone. - They do. - There's a very strong tone. - There's a very strong tone. The satire on the world is just so well done. The game plays great. I think they've just done a phenomenal job. - Is there any others that pop to mind? - Portal. - Portal, yeah. That's another weird creation.

- [Todd] I could just sit here and list games forever. - Well, I'm enjoying this. - Hearthstone's a game I love. I love all time, I like sports, college football, NCAA Football was my favorite. It's like, I would say this is a great role playing-. - Oh, you would actually keep getting role... (laughs). - It's a roleplaying game. 'Cause I have all these characters. I have like 60 characters, and they're all leveling up and then I have to play. them and then the college ones are like college football, they'd graduate, so you lose your players and then. they stop making this series and I know the folks.

at EA and they will say, I have bugged them. When is this? And they're doing it. So it's finally coming back. - Nice. What would you say is the greatest sports game of all time? - Hmm... Well it's NCAA Football, you have to pick the year. - NCAA, versus Madden? - Oh yeah. Yeah, but there's more teams, you got the college fight songs. There's more pageantry. And the players turn over. They're only there for four seasons.

So you have to, so you know, it's the, there's, it's more dynamic. - So you like variety versus... - So what was the last one? 2014 maybe it was? - And you don't like FIFA and... - I like, look, FIFA's incredible. I just, look, I'm a college football fan. They give you that fantasy... If you like European football slash soccer, FIFA's incredible. Yeah, I love that game too. - Have you been paying attention to the game design. of that world?

Of those worlds? - Yeah. And the thing people I think with those kind of games, it is like, or racing games, Forza, put up there, I love Forza. Played them all. When you have to recreate something that's real. in the real world, say it's cars or it's sports games, everybody knows how it should work. That's a really difficult task. When people know how it should work. Then you're gonna balance it for single player, the multiplayer parts of it. Very, very competitive.

And in many respects you're forced to put. out a new version every year. And I say forced in quotes 'cause, you know, they count them as big updates. But it's a very, it's a much more difficult development process. than I think people understand. And how hard those teams work. I know a lot of people who do it and I think they just do. I've enjoyed them all. I buy Madden every year. - Yeah. So yeah, every single year.

Yeah, they do refresh it. There's a feeling of freshness. I don't know what that is. - Yeah, look, there have been years where it feels. like less was done and more was done. But I enjoy it every year. - Yeah. Yeah. What does a perfectly productive day in the life. of Todd Howard look like? So, maybe not perfectly, but just like a perfectly average productive, are you a morning person, evening person? Is it chaos? Is it pretty regular? - I'm in a good, I'm in a good flow right now.

I'm still doing a lot of stuff. So there's things I'm like executive producing. and then Starfield I'm directing. So I sort of view that as that's an every day thing. Fortunately I get to do a lot of stuff from, look at the TV show we're making. and this Indiana Jones game that's being. developed at MachineGames. So we have to look at that. But the best really day or where I feel it's fulfilling is,

get to play some of a game, the game, we'll say Starfield, get to play some of Starfield, look at the problem set of what it is doing, and then get in a room with the other developers. that I work closely with and we solve. that problem together. So that's the most rewarding thing when you can say, okay, what do we want this to do? What's the real player experience we want? What are all the pieces in front of us?

Where you know the actual tangible pieces as opposed to... The beginning, the pie in the sky part is always fun, but it's like anything is possible that's fun, but it's not rewarding in the same way 'cause. you haven't solved something. Whereas these are the elements you have to play with. How do we make this all work together? And you come out of it at the end of the day, like, now that feels great. - So brainstorming about specific big picture,

both big picture and very specific detail of a game. that's not working? Something's not working, you wanna fix it, that kind of stuff? - And you just, because you feel like, okay, you've made tangible progress on the actual build. of the game, or something you played in the beginning. of the day, didn't feel great, you've figured out a solution with a group of people. Like it's always with a group. And then the next day you're like, yeah, that was, that worked out. - Who's on the team? Is it designers, engineers... - All of the above. - Artists, voice over-.

- So internal to the studio, it's a lot of programming, a lot of art... You have design, which breaks into some quest design, writing, systems design who are like doing all. the treasure and the loot. and the skill systems. And then level design is making the spaces like. those that you'll play through. Production is a big part of it. The producers who organize everything. I can't remember if I mentioned art, a lot of artists. QA staff as well. They're hugely valuable in saying, hey,

we broke your game in these magical ways, what are you gonna do about it? - Is the design team still hiring? How do I apply? That seems like the most fun job. - [Todd] (laughs) Always. Always. - I mean at all of this seems like a super fun job. - It is. You know what, it's the best, then you have audio... And it by far is the greatest job. you could possibly have. So if you're into like technology, it's great. If you're into storytelling, creativity and art, it's great. And it's really the gaming, the combination of that.

- And like I mentioned to you offline, I think of video games is, I mean, to me has brought thousands of hours of happiness. And so when you're designing the game, whatever you're doing, you have a part to play. in a thing that's going to bring like millions, hundreds of millions of hours of happiness to people. - And you know- - It's crazy. Right? - It is. And I'm gonna play you saying that back to our team. 'Cause, you know, people forget, your head's down,

you're trying to solve these problems and then. you do forget how many people it touches. - Like even tiny decisions you make, tiny little things you create... Yeah, it's weird. I wish there was a way to like, I would notice things in a video game and it's like, huh, okay. Like it feels good, but you don't get that signal. The creator doesn't get that signal. I wish they did. I guess you could get that signal by,

why is Lex stuck in this room? Like digging through the loot... - We do get, we do now get a lot of good data. on what the players are doing. - Enjoying and not, that kind of thing? - Well, we know where they've been. and where they've died and how long they play. in certain sections. And we can sort of tell, outside of people just telling us on forums or calling. or other things, we can tell for some data. where people are dropping off or having a... We can tell if there's a key frustration point. - Do you ever think about making people feel like.

human feelings when they play? Like designing, like make them feel fear or excitement, anger, longing, loneliness- - All of the above. Yeah, of course. The big one, I like to say, is that video games give you is pride, outside of other... If you watch movies or things like that. Like, yeah. But you never think like, look what I did.

- [Lex] Yes. - And that feeling of like accomplishment and pride. in what you did, where you overcame... You talked about going back to a game that like, those are real feelings of like accomplishment. that I've felt in games that I've played. And when we get to see a player feel that, it's really, really special. The other one is there is a,

there is an escape or to be someone else. that's more powerful in what, in our games that you aren't in real life that gives. you a confidence or a perspective. We're doing one next week, we've done a number of Make a Wish visits, kids who could wish for anything and they wanna come, and I wanna see the next game and meet the creators. and see how you do it. And they come with their family. And it is like the greatest thing that we do.

And it reminds you of like how important it is. And the other really awesome thing is that you can. see like the family change by the end of the day. Like they don't, they didn't even realize what it meant. to their child or what went into it. And it's just, that to me is like, been involved with that foundation for a number. of years and it's been really good reminder.

of how lucky we are. - And in general, for young people, that sense of accomplishment is hard to find. - I mean- - Yeah, they don't, not everybody has it in the outlets. that real life provides. - Well, that's the thing, I mean, the world is cruel to you when you're young. Nobody takes you seriously. You don't get, like, that's why you, everybody always wants to grow up and get all this. as fast as possible. - It's hard. It's the hardest, it's hard.

- And then video games allow you... I mean, to build that sense of confidence, a sense of pride in something. That's why when people talk down to video games, like it's a culture and so on. It's not, it misses out on that really. deeply meaningful thing. - [Todd] Agreed. - Especially with like single player, there's some darker aspects to multiplayer. that people create communities and it can go off. the rails a bit, but the actual experience of the game,

especially one you stick with for a while, that's really beautiful. Do you have advice for those same young folks, given that your life is an interesting one, given what kind of degree you got and up being. a legendary game designer, do you have advice for young folks in high school, maybe college, how to have a career or a life they can. be proud of? - Well you have to find something that you love. so much that it's never gonna feel like a job.

And don't do it for money, don't do it for, find something you love and the rest of it will come. It won't be a straight path. And do not ever underestimate yourself. It's gonna take hard work, but the worst thing that young people do is think. they can't accomplish something.

or they underestimate themselves. And maybe those first few times through where they do fail, if they love it enough, they're gonna be resilient and push past that. Anyone who's had success or gotten somewhere, it's been, they've had those times, right? And they've stayed resilient because they love. it so much that this is what they wanna do. When you do it for other reasons, I just don't think it's gonna work out the same.

- Did you have low points in your life? Dark points, where your mind went to a dark place? Whether it's struggling to get a job. at Bethesda Softworks. or maybe with Redguard flop or... Where you kind of start to doubt yourself or any of that? - Well, I think, what's weird looking back, I was so, I was always so like in love with doing.

this that I didn't view them. as like dark, per se. Looking back, I was like, oh that was, I just wanted to, okay, let me find a way to make this work. - Even when it's hard and it's failing and all. that kind of stuff, you just kind of like, it's a problem before you to solve? - Yeah. When I started Bethesda, I don't know, my father had moved nearby to the office. I was moving and I slept on a sofa. Like I didn't care.

Like I don't need a bedroom, I'll just, I'll sleep on the sofa and work there. That's all I wanna do. When the company almost went outta business, it was, well I hope it doesn't, I feel somewhat responsible, but hey, let's, okay, that's a learning lesson. Let's go. I think I was pretty resilient to it all. Fallout 76, like really bad launch, and okay, what did we do wrong? What can we learn? Let's go edit.

Now it's a success. But those kind of ups and downs for the length. of developments that we have, people don't see 'em but we have 'em all the time. And so it's that sort of belief that with the team. having done it time and time again to know that, nah, we're gonna make it as good as we possibly can, and whatever we're experiencing now, when we solve it and we get it out and we see. the millions of people who love it, it's all worth it.

- And you're getting into new spaces, first of all new worlds with Starfield, but also new... I saw the TV show you're working on. - [Todd] Yep. - On Fallout with Amazon. What's that like? Worlds that you created in the digital realm becoming, going on the screen? - Yeah, people asked... I can remember 10 years ago after Fallout 3 was a hit, the movie producers coming and hey,

we think this will make a great movie. And taking a lot of meetings. And I think, mostly would jump at that. Like, sweet! And I sort of paused and like, I don't know, what is this gonna do? I feel like they're gonna like synthesize, and met great people, like well known creatives. Like it's gonna get synthesized into this two hour... I don't know, I'm not seeing the great thing here yet. So I think the advent of television in terms.

of what it's become nowadays with big budget TV series, it kind of came up again and met with people. and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy who do. Westworld and I always love the work he did. writing "Interstellar" and "the Dark,". like movies I just love. - Like Jonathan Nolan's involved with this? - Yeah, he's the EP and he's directed the first-. - That's incredible. - Yep. Okay. - This is awesome. - And he's the EP, he's directed the first few episodes...

- [Lex] Ah, nice. - And when I connected with him, Jonah was like, hey, you're my, you're the person I want to do this. So, and I met with people kept saying like, can I just, let me see if he wants to do it. And it was to my joy, he was like, oh yeah, Fallout 3 is one of my, yeah, sign me up. It was like, no, how do we get this done? And at that time he was sorta, he was at HBO and it was, you know... We were trying to figure out, it was, put a little pause on it, and got to visit the sets,

reading scripts and things like that. It's all new to me, but I, they're doing such an incredible job. Like, I think if you like this world, you are gonna be just blown away. So keep mind, I've never made a TV show. Those are all the best. No one ever does it wanting it to not be great. But they've just done, their attention to detail and they're just obsessive. with what's on the screen.

and the storytelling and how it looks. The whole thing. - Yeah. I think Obsession is really a prerequisite for greatness. What they did, HBO did with Chernobyl, like. the attention to detail. It's just incredible. - And he's doing The Last of Us now, that showrunner. - If you really care and you really put a lot. of effort into the details, you can-. - I was stunned. They, I mean...

I don't wanna spoil it, but when people see it, I think it'll just be like, wow. It's the... The other thing we're approaching it, is very. different where when it was people would say, wanna make a movie? They wanted to tell the story of Fallout 3 or then. tell the story of Fallout 4, and eh... And for this it was, hey, let's do something that exists in the world of Fallout. It's not retelling a game story, it's basically an area of the map, and like, let's tell a story here that fits in the world.

that we have built, doesn't break any of the rules, can reference things in the games, but isn't a retelling of the games that exists. in the same world but is its own unique thing. So it adds to it, while also people who don't, haven't played the games, who can't experience like how crazy cool. Fallout is can watch the series and so... - Are there some similarities or interesting. differences between the creation of a game and a TV. show that you noticed from the sort of story perspective?

- Well, for them it's much more character driven. Like you can do all these things with the world. and stuff that we already have. It's the main characters, who they are, what their motivations are, that really is the engine. - [Lex] Right. There's no... - Finding the right actors to do those. Yeah. - 'Cause you're not, there's no interaction. There's no, you don't get to enter that world.

They have to do the work for you. The NPCs are on the show. Yeah. I can't wait to see how it turns out. You also mentioned Indiana Jones. That's a weird, that's a different one. How do you work with, like, with a famous protagonist? Like when the character's known, how do you work with that? - Well, it's different. It's different... Like Indiana Jones is different where like the name... It is the, like it's Indiana Jones, not a world, it's him, right?

You can talk about the world. of Indiana Jones, but at the end of the day. it's about this character. And "Raiders," still my favorite movie of all time. No debate. It's the best movie ever. - Best movie ever? - Ever. Love it. - On a tangent, what do you love about it? - Well, I saw it, obviously when I was younger and I believed it. I believed this happened, and when they found the Ark, I literally, I could not believe that they found it. So, and I have found over my life,

it's still really watchable every time. I enjoy it every single time. Love the character, love the story. The opening is the greatest movie opening ever. And I just love everything, I love everything about it. - What was the opening? Is this when the... - What? It's the temple and then the ball rolls and tries. to crush him. - Oh, that's the opening. - That's the opening of "Raiders." Yeah. He steals the... - I think you're deeply authentic.

- Like what's the opening of "Raiders"? So I've always wanted to, it's one of those things like what's on your bucket list? Like, oh, I wanna make an Indiana Jones game, and I had pitched Lucas, I had met some people. there and pitched them back in '09. this Indiana Jones game concept. And they wanted to publish, it's kind of the deal fell apart. They wanted to publish it and we were a publisher. and so we didn't do it. And I didn't really have the team to do it. I just was gonna figure that out after we agreed to a deal.

And well, we made Skyrim so it worked out, and then fast forward 10 years plus and Lucas, now part. of Disney and they're doing a lot more of licensing. and working with people and so I knew some folks. there and said, oh, I have this idea that I pitched a long time ago. And they loved it. And again, the internal team that I had. not only didn't have the time, they probably weren't as good a fit.

as MachineGames, who's done the Wolfenstein series, who is the perfect fit for this game with storytelling. and how they record it. And they are, it's awesome. They're just doing an incredible job with that game. It's, people are gonna be, if you like Indiana Jones, it is a definite love letter. to Indiana Jones and everything with it. - Can you say if it's a, if it's more on the action adventure like side, like the actual experience of the game?

- I could go back. I would just say it is a mashup. It is a unique, it isn't one thing, intentionally. So it does a lot of different things. that we've, myself, and Eric, and the folks at MachineGames. have wanted to do in a game. So it's a unique thing. - Before I forget, who do I, how many humans do I have to kill, I mean dragons do I have to kill to get myself.

somehow into Elder Scrolls VI? It's a mod, if anyone wants to create mods of me... And is that possible? - Yeah. - It's possible? - [Todd] Of course. - While maintaining realism somehow. 'Cause you don't want a person in a suit and tie, doesn't make sense. - We could put you in Fallout. You can wear that. - Yeah, please, put me, so Fallout is, there's also culture of... - You do a mod where you replace the Mysterious Stranger.

- There you go. That's a to-do task. - Top mod right there. - And you will have my deep gratitude and more, dear stranger, for doing so. What's the programming language for mods? Is it mostly... - They use our internal scripting language. that's built into the tool. - Okay. I'm almost afraid to explore that world. 'Cause you'll never, never never turn back. How long, you've created so many incredible games...

Is there, what does the future hold? Do you, is there, so sort of going through this process, do you still have the energy, the passion, the drive, to keep creating? - I cannot imagine doing anything else. I'd like to do it as long as possible. I will say though, as I've done it... Soon it'll be 30 years at Bethesda, I've learned. that to appreciate the developments a little bit more,

that the time it takes, I should prioritize all of us enjoying. the development process more than I did in the past. Was like, just wanted it to end, that's all that mattered. And the more you do it, you realize, no, I'm spending the majority of my life. in Tamriel and the Wasteland of Fallout. So the moments that we're all doing this together,

we need to enjoy it. Like it's a lot of work finishing Starfield, but, hey, we gotta enjoy this. This is like incredible. We don't get that many shots. So... - So the actual process of creating, the struggles along the way of stuff not working, like you said, at this point with Starfield. probably creating some of the glue of how stuff feels. and going back again and again and again to try to make. the beginning better, all that kind of stuff? - And I would say it for anybody's vocation, whatever you're doing, whatever people do,

you're gonna have harder times. And sometimes people, it's, you have to maybe recalibrate yourself to like, okay, how can we make this more enjoyable for all of us. no matter what you're doing, and rewarding? - So if life is a video game, which most likely is, what do you think is the meaning of life? From having created so many games or the character has. to try to figure out? I mean, there's bigger questions.

than just solving the quest. You're asking the big questions of why am I here? I feel like that's good practice for answering. the same question for this video game we're in. What do you think is the meaning of life, Todd Howard? - That was a very... I can say what motivates me. - That's a good start.

- Having a curiosity, the ability to not assume a lot and be curious. about the world around you. It's more, it's not the same as just wanting. to learn everything, but what makes other humans tick? How do they feel? How do they love? It might be cliche to say the meaning of life. is to love, right?

- So that curiosity is just, is about noticing the world? - Noticing the world around you. I mean, look, there's so much to an anecdote someone says, everybody has two lives and the second one starts. when you realize there's only one. And I think, I usually preach to my children. and everything else, like, have a curiosity to the world around. you and you'll have the most fulfilling days. - Are you able to be inside the worlds.

that you've created and be able to notice them, like really enjoy them? - It takes time. So like Skyrim had its 10th anniversary. It's when I went back into it. I think I got to see it for what it is. My younger son got really into it a few years back. on the Switch. That's what we notice. People age up into it, right? So one of the reasons it's so popular is as people. come into, they're now becoming teenagers and oh, okay,

I'll finally play Skyrim. And he got obsessed with it. Not... And he wasn't usually, I'd say, "Hey, check out my games," and like, "Ah, shut up, Dad.". We don't, we're playing this other stuff. And he got like obsessed with Skyrim, like, we're having like deep Elder Scrolls lore conversations. at dinner, and I saw it through his eyes. and that was pretty special. And then the mods he was downloading. and the YouTubers he was following, talking about stuff. So the people who,

like the Elder Scrolls people don't realize how much. of that I have watched with my son. And then when the 10th Anniversary came out, like, oh, I'm gonna check out a build, I have to check out the build out. But I hadn't played it in so long and it was like, it does, it has this flow where like, oh my God, I just played for four hours. I need to turn it off. (laughs). - Yeah, I mean there's something about. enjoying games with the people you love too. or the water cooler discussion, and with kids...

So I actually, I would love to have kids. and hopefully soon in the future. So I guess the thing I need your advice on is how do. I time it in such a way when they're old enough right. at the age they're old enough... Like I wanna know when to have them. so that when they're old enough that's exactly. when Elder Scrolls VI comes out. So I want to, can you gimme hint, when I should have kids? All right. Never mind. - You're a genius at how to ask that question.

- The number of times. Yeah. You told the anecdote that your son asked. you the same question. But of course it's all for good fun. Take as much time as is needed. It's, Skyrim is still an incredible game. It has an impact on millions of people, as do all of your games. It's, thank you for everything you've done for the world. - [Todd] Thank you. - It's a huge honor that you would talk with me. - This has been an honor, and it has to be said. Look, I have a huge team of people I've worked. with for, some of them for 20 years.

and it's really all of us together. - Keep doing a great job, guys and gals. I can't wait to see what you create next. It really, really does have an impact on silly kids. like me, and millions of silly kids like me. So I really appreciate everything. - Thank you. - Thanks, Todd. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Todd Howard. To support this podcast please check out our sponsors. in the description. And now, let me leave you some words from Tolkien.

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their end.". Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.